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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22473853">better days</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon'>penhaligon</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Watcher Kit [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Pillars of Eternity</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bad Things Happen Bingo, F/M, One Shot Collection</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-03</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-05-16</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 06:54:39</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>9</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>21,674</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22473853</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/penhaligon/pseuds/penhaligon</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>The Watcher and Edér have each other's backs throughout the years.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Edér Teylecg &amp; The Watcher, Edér Teylecg/The Watcher</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Watcher Kit [5]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1271783</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>41</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Hallucinations</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>A collection of Watcher/Edér ficlets, prompted from the Bad Things Happen Bingo.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They had a system in place when the Watcher slipped into her one of her trances –- the ones that lasted longer than a few seconds, anyway. One of them would keep close, and the others would fan out, either to keep an eye out for danger or to make the scene look as inconspicuous as possible. They fell into the routine as easily as breathing these days, and more often than not, Edér found himself on Watcher duty.</p><p>It wasn't something he thought about. He'd just put himself at Kit's side if he wasn't there already, and he'd wait it out with her. Sometimes it was less than pleasant and more like the dreams that left such dark circles under her eyes. She saw terrible things, things that she whispered to him about in the dead of night, things that he couldn't beat back or shoulder for her. Her eyes would dart this way and that, as if the things that left such a devastated look on her face were all around her, and her body would react convulsively, flinching away from the horrors of the past.</p><p>This time wasn't like those. Kit froze as they stepped off the pier at Burial Isle, and her eyes remained riveted straight ahead. She didn't move as Edér positioned himself in front of her, so that anything that came at them through the damp mist would have to go through him first. She didn't move as the others spread out, cautiously investigating the grassy courtyard beyond.</p><p>When the rest of the party had stepped past, Edér felt comfortable turning his back on Burial Isle so that he could face Kit instead. She still had not moved, but it was Edér's turn to freeze.</p><p>She wore no look of horror this time. Instead, her expression was soft, longing, tender in a way that Edér couldn’t rightly remember ever seeing on her face before. He'd had a relationship or two in years past, and one that might have been serious enough to call it something close to love, but he couldn't recall a time when anyone had ever looked at him quite like <em>that</em>.</p><p>No, he reminded himself. Not him. Someone else from long ago, a woman whom someone with Kit's soul had loved very much -- loved in the way they wrote stories about. But as he watched, something else flickered through Kit's face, dark and upset.</p><p>Sometimes Edér didn’t know how much of what he saw was<em> her</em> and how much was the past, but he thought that the thing slowly twisting across her face might have been guilt and might have been hers.</p><p>He froze again when Kit's hand came up to caress his cheek.</p><p>It was a ghost of a touch, but Edér didn't dare move, even though his thumping heartbeat was liable to draw all manner of enemies down on them. Kit traced his jaw with a thumb, and Edér nearly leaned into it on instinct, because no one had touched him like that in a long time. But Kit wasn't looking at him. She was looking at that woman of hers with a storybook love and a raging guilt in her eyes, and Edér wanted to pull back so that he wasn't intruding on... whatever it was. It was too private, too much for him.</p><p>But he didn’t know what would happen if he moved, because sometimes the visions made Kit jumpy and fit to lash out. So Edér remained motionless, caught between impulses and watching wide-eyed, intensely aware of the curve of her fingers against his face, until at last Kit's gaze cleared.</p><p>She blinked in a way that Edér knew was a sign that she was coming back to herself. Her fingers went rigid, a dawning realization settling into her features, and then she snatched her hand away so fast that the skin where they'd rested felt cold in their absence.</p><p>Kit rocked backwards, as if she was going to tip over, and Edér reached out to catch her. But Kit shied away from him and steadied herself, and Edér's hands dropped to his sides as his insides twisted. She was just disoriented, he reminded himself. She couldn't think that he'd hurt her. Could she?</p><p>Kit's eyes fixed on the wet ground, and the dread on her face was near anguished. She breathed hard and shaky, and it was as if she didn't want to look at Edér. He couldn't help the continued pitching of his stomach, as if he'd done something wrong, as if he'd screwed up monumentally by not pulling away when he should have.</p><p>Until Kit murmured, "I think I did something terrible," and Edér got it, then, why she was angled away from him, why she'd put distance between them.</p><p>She was afraid that she'd hurt someone else.</p><p>"That wasn't you," Edér said at once, and he didn't step any closer, even though he wanted to.</p><p>Finally, Kit looked up, and Edér's chest squeezed at the heartache on her face. Her eyes searched him like she was looking for an answer to an unspeakable question, and he didn't know if he was all that qualified to give one.</p><p>"How many times do we gotta tell you?" Edér said softly, the only thing he could say. "That wasn't you. Not your fault you got saddled with someone else's choices. No more than it's Aloth or Iselmyr's fault that they got stuck with each other."</p><p>It was like Kit didn't want to believe it, or couldn't, because her jaw tightened in that way it did when she was about to stubbornly dig her heels into an issue. In the time that Edér had known her, he had never seen her so rattled as he had in these past few weeks, and had rarely seen her trade in reason for fits of emotion. But something in her had snapped after the riots in Defiance Bay. Had kept unraveling, no matter how much any of them tried to help her told it together.</p><p>But then, to Edér's surprise, Kit swallowed and offered a small, accepting nod. For a moment, it looked like she wanted to say something else, one of her hands flexing at her side, but she looked away from him, her eyes settling on the courtyard beyond the pier, and the moment passed.</p><p>Instead, her lips curled back into that slip of an unhappy smile of hers, the kind that usually meant bad news for the other guy. "Let's go," Kit said, and she stepped past him, towards the misty courtyard and the rest of the party.</p><p>Edér watched her go, something heavy and uncertain in his gut, until he remembered himself and hurried to catch up. As he followed her her, a feather-light drizzle began to fall from the sky, and the sensation of her fingers trailing across his face was echoed in the brush of mist and rain against his skin.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Bedside Vigil</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>He'd only seen her a month ago.</p><p>The thought maintained a steady intrusion into Edér's head, as he and the Steward planned their next moves and tried to pretend that neither of them were frantic and halfway to grieving. A month ago, Kit had come to Dyrford on one of her "official" visits that were always an excuse to rub elbows. She'd been all smiles and easy laughter, and sometimes Edér couldn't stop comparing the Kit he knew now to the Kit he'd met on a dreary day in Gilded Vale. How much happier she was. How much happier <em>he</em> was, in a way that had seemed just out of reach for fifteen odd years.</p><p>Two months ago, he'd last seen Caed Nua on an "official" visit of his own, and now it was in shambles. Now Kit lay motionless and all but dead, and Edér couldn't stop thinking about how Eothas had done this. Edér's god had done this, had hurt his dearest friend, and countless others to boot, <em>again</em>, and all Edér could feel was a numb kind of shock, a muted disbelief as if waiting to wake up from a bad dream.</p><p>He'd waited so long to see anything, hear anything to confirm that Eothas wasn't really dead, that he could somehow and in some way come back, even after they'd learned what the gods really were, and now...</p><p>Edér was pretty sure that he'd rather have Kit back.</p><p>He steadied himself by letting Vela cling to him, as they worked through chartering a ship. Her nurse was dead, and Kit's captain was two weeks away on an assignment, and Edér knew that Kit would trust few else to care for Vela. So it fell to him and the Steward, a farmer-turned-mayor and a disembodied statue's head, and they couldn't afford to wait for the captain to receive word, even if Edér had some misgivings about bringing along a small child to chase a god.</p><p>Still, it gave him something to do, because when he wasn't looking after Vela, he found himself drifting back to Kit's bedside. He was sure that there were better things to do on a ship, but Kit had a pull to her even when she lay on the brink of life and death. How many times had Edér found himself waiting for her to wake up in the past? Trying everything he could to wake her up when nightmares held her in their grip?</p><p>When he hadn't been trying to get her to sleep, anyway. She'd always been keen to avoid it, and it had given Edér much grief five years prior and afterwards too, and now he found himself wishing that she'd do anything but.</p><p>"Finally catching up on all that sleep, huh?" he said one day, sat in a chair beside her bed. He wasn't sure how long they'd been at sea. The days were starting to blur together, and that wasn't a good sign for the state his head was in, any more than the numb heaviness in his chest was. But he didn't really know what to do about that, except weather it.</p><p>Kit didn't answer, same as how she hadn't answered anything he'd said lately. She might never answer him again, or laugh at his stupid jokes, or ramble on about some high-minded science thing that he could only half follow, but, well... Edér wasn't going to think about that. It started up a flare of dull panic in his chest, when it crossed his mind, and neither of them needed that.</p><p>"You're really something, you know?" he said, like this was any old conversation. "Make me worry when you don't sleep, make me worry when you do. Think I've gotten gray hairs 'cos of you."</p><p>Kit was silent, unmoving, not even breathing, and yet, miraculously-- still alive. Maybe that had something to do with Eothas, too.</p><p>"Least it's not your fault this time," Edér added, and for some reason, the saying of it hurt, and he had to breathe deeply for a moment, tucking that away alongside the panic he couldn't allow himself to feel.</p><p>She was going to wake up, because he'd never met anyone more maddeningly stubborn or possessed of a peculiar ability to survive things that would kill anyone else. Eothas was leaving a trail of dead in his wake, but only one of those dead clung to something like life against all odds, and it came as no surprise that it was the Watcher. She was going to wake up, because Edér didn't know what he would do if she didn't. He thought he might wait for the rest of his life, if it came down to that.</p><p>Hel, he might have waited that long for Eothas, too.</p><p>Edér shook his head and found hands reaching for pipe, as he sat there and kept watch and tried not to pay attention to how still Kit was. A month, he thought, plus however many days it had been since he'd arrived at Caed Nua in a rush, sick with dread. It wasn't so long a wait. He could certainly hold out longer. He <em>had</em> held out longer.</p><p>It was what he'd told Kit once, five years ago-- waiting for better days was preferable to losing himself in grief, and so that was what he'd do.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>The idea that Edér and the Watcher didn't hang out between games is dumb as hell, and we're ignoring it.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. Taking The Bullet</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The noise haunted her for weeks afterwards. The rest faded into a blur, because it wasn't the first time that Kit had disintegrated an enemy or two, nor would it be the last. She was all too used to the way that skin and essence sloughed off of whoever was unfortunate enough to get in her way. But it was the sound of flesh being split and Edér's choked inhalation that stayed with her, creeping into dreams and sleepless nighttime thoughts, and it was even worse than the fragments of a dreadful past that she wasn't sure she wanted to know more about.</p><p>Their attackers were dead, and Kit wouldn't lose any sleep over them, but a blow meant to go through her spine had gone through Edér instead, and the steady whine of panic was building pressure in her head. Her ability to think fought to sharpen its usual edge and found itself remaining stubbornly dull. It didn't help that she was barely recovered from the last scuffle, which was why they'd stayed <em>here</em> instead of heading out with the rest of the party and their gods damned <em>priest</em>.</p><p>"Th-the one time I take that armor off, eh?" Edér managed, a breathy little quip that gave way to a retching little gasp as his back arched up convulsively from the forest floor.</p><p>Kit wanted to tell him to shut up and let her think, but Edér was fast losing himself to agony, and it was something that Kit never wanted to see again. Worse, even, than the actual wound that had cut him open across the middle. The revelation that she simply could not bear the sight, nor the razor scrape of its echoes against her senses, finally tipped Kit's thoughts into order, and she fumbled with the pendant around her neck, drawing on every last drop of essence contained within, and then digging into her own soul as well, heedless of how dangerous that could be.</p><p>When she moved her hands to either side of Edér's face, his involuntary writhing nearly broke her concentration, but she called on every reserve of residual cold and callous that rested deep in the bedrock of who she'd been raised as, and she focused only on the power, on the feel of a mind underneath her cipher's hands.</p><p>It was malleable and defenseless under the onslaught of so much pain. She was all too used to the way that vulnerable minds yielded before her, but she didn't leave herself any room for recoil or the always-lingering salt-taste of guilt. There was room only for the essence warping under her will, her essence and Edér's and the raw energy of the pendant bent by the adra and copper into the crude shape of a makeshift housed soul. There was room only for the knowledge of how to walk along the threads where soul was bound to mind and to body.</p><p>Slowly, the shuddering ground to a halt, and the whimpering fell away, and Edér blinked up at the sky in bewilderment as Kit let her hands fall away from his stubble. She remained hovering above him, anxiously looking him over, as Edér's blinking reached a rapid crescendo before his eyes met hers. He took a slow breath, which hitched but didn't appear to cause him any distress.</p><p>"Didn't know you knew how to heal," Edér said, strained, dazed. He made as if to rise, but Kit's hands immediately latched onto his shoulders and shoved him gently back down. Now he blinked up at her, though he didn't fight it, letting himself go limp under her hands.</p><p>"I don't," Kit said, and she left her hands where they were, a warning weight pinning him down. "Don't move." Edér's eyes narrowed in thought, and she saw the way he twitched, the way intent flowed ahead of movement. She squeezed his shoulders hard, pushing down just a little more, and he acquiesced instantly, relaxing in her hold. "Don't look, either."</p><p>Though his brows furrowed in confusion, Edér offered her a tiny nod and remained still, and the trust inherent in it twisted something up in Kit's throat.</p><p>"It's, ah-- it's just a pain block," she said, and she talked mostly to offer distraction, a counterweight to the nervous energy now resonating through Edér. To keep his attention on her, and not on the hands that she removed from his shoulders as she leaned away, reaching behind her. "There are... parts of your mind that allow you to feel pain, and I'm telling them to be quiet. If you look, it'll be that much harder to convince your mind that you aren't actually in pain. So just... don't. Look at me."</p><p>Edér did, and it might have been the first time that Kit noticed how blue his eyes were. "Huh," Edér said, and it was painfully obvious how he manhandled cheer into the words that followed. "Could've used that about fifteen years ago."</p><p>There was a strip of cloak in Kit's hands now, yanked from the nearest body, and she had to force herself to look at the wound. It was bad. It was really, really bad, and she was no healer, but she wasn't without her ways. "No ciphers in the regulars?" she asked, and she folded the cloak, then pushed it tight against Edér's stomach. It was a paltry solution at best. Gut wounds were the worst of the worst and killed the fastest, after the instant kills.</p><p>The rest of the party should have been back ten minutes ago. Where the <em>fuck</em> was that priest? Never had Kit imagined that she'd regret sending him off with the others, in case <em>they</em> got attacked. Aloth's pained look before they'd set off had made it clear who was losing out in that scenario. In theory, at least.</p><p>Maybe she should consider hiring a paladin, once they got to Defiance Bay. One healer to four anything-but was fast becoming an unsafe ratio.</p><p>"If there were, they never introduced themselves," Edér said. His jaw kept twitching, like he was physically restraining himself from looking down, but his eyes stayed fixed on Kit, following her. "Can't say I blame 'em for it. Dyrwoodans are funny about who they trust."</p><p>Stopping up the blood flow with a bit of cloth wasn't the only thing that Kit could do. She delved deeper into the block with a cipher's touch, following the threads of power to the corners of Edér's mind where pain could no longer translate, and then she went further, to different corners where the mind and the body were most closely intertwined.</p><p>She thought of calm seas and the deep stillness of the Dyrwood's forests, and she thought of the night sky in its quiet, slow-turning glory, of time spent observing it in darkness and contemplation. She thought of the steady pulse of adra beneath her hands, beneath the ground, and she thought of the Wheel turning, and she told the wound to slow, to grind its death march to halt and start an achingly sluggish reverse.</p><p>"You must make for a lousy Dyrwoodan, then," Kit said as she worked.</p><p>"Or you make for a real good one," Edér said, and his head twitched in the direction of the nearest body. Not all of the dead around them were Kit's handiwork, but the nearest had felt the brunt of her fury. "I almost feel sorry for those bastards."</p><p>"They had it coming," Kit muttered darkly.</p><p>"See?" Edér said, and then a full-body shudder rocked through him.</p><p>Kit grabbed onto her concentration fiercely, pulling it back into place, and the block solidified once more, even though the boundaries of her vision were starting to swim. Edér released a breath, and Kit kept her hands pressed relentlessly down and her mind pressed relentlessly against his. If she wanted to, she could sift through the bright field of essence that made him up and see anything and everything that made a home in his mind. That capacity, that knowledge sat always and intrusively at the back of her thoughts, and she hated it.</p><p>"I can do some makeshift healing," she said, speaking slowly, deliberately, careful not to jostle her focus again. "Nothing like the real thing, but I can tell your body to... work harder to keep you alive. Until that stupid priest gets back." Where <em>were</em> they?</p><p>"My life in Durance's hands," Edér said morosely. "Ugh. Might as well let me bleed out."</p><p>"Don't say that," Kit snapped, and she didn't know why it bothered her so suddenly and strongly. Maybe it was because she couldn't quite stop her hands from shaking, and she was getting more tired by the minute. She was always more prickly when she was tired, but knowing that didn't make curbing it any easier.</p><p>Edér's lips pressed together. He gave her an odd look, and for some reason, irritation flashed bright and distracting in Kit's thoughts at the sight of it.</p><p>But she kept a tight hold on her focus and didn't allow the wound to resist her. She could tell that the blood flow beneath her hands was already slowing to a trickle, more so from her cipher's touch than from the ministrations of one measly cloak against a gut wound. "What were you thinking?" she demanded, looking at her red-flecked fingers instead of Edér. She didn't elaborate, but she didn't need to.</p><p>"Better me than you," Edér said, a bit of irritation creeping into his voice too.</p><p>"What the fuck does that mean?"</p><p>"<em>You're</em> the one with the fancy magic powers," Edér said and gave off the impression that he'd be shrugging if Kit hadn't expressly ordered him not to move. "Figured the odds were better that way."</p><p>"You didn't know if I could heal you!" Kit said, and she made the mistake of looking back at his face. If he wasn't sprawled on the ground and three steps from dead, she'd want to yell at him, but unfortunately, one look had her deflating with an exasperated sigh that trembled at the edges.</p><p>"Well," Edér said, "no, but..." He trailed off and seemed to realize that his reasoning led to a dead end, and a shaky breath escaped from between his teeth. He wasn't in pain, but he was paler now, the margins of his voice more frayed, and Kit swallowed hard. She wasn't feeling too great herself. "I dunno. I just... couldn't let you get hurt, alright? Not if I could stop it."</p><p>The lightheaded clawing behind her eyes was because she'd more than overdone it on powers today, Kit thought, and not because the simple, honest statement caught in her throat. Edér had certainly been taking it upon himself to watch out for them all in their increasingly frequent number of skirmishes, and he seemed particularly willful about shadowing her, which was why he'd stayed here instead of going with the others.</p><p>This skirmish, at least, had not been one they'd sought out, but rather had come about from the foolishness of assuming that they were a little safer, this close to Defiance Bay with their camp tucked away in a secluded stretch of forest. That they could take a moment to unwind and clean faces and clothes in the stream that wound close, even though Kit's passive senses had been worn down in the weeks since the caravan, and she hadn't sniffed out the approaching marauders until they had been too close.</p><p>She'd have to be more careful, and not just in choosing camp and how the party split. She wasn't keen on a repeat of today's experiences, either getting jumped or Edér jumping between her and a blade she'd been a second too slow to sense. She didn't like how easily he'd ranked her life above his.</p><p>"You're welcome," Edér added. "You know, for your spine and all."</p><p>"<em>Thank you</em>," Kit said, as heartfelt as she could manage when she was damn near vibrating with stress and essence. "You stupid man. Don't ever do that again."</p><p>Edér offered an exaggerated little gasp. They both pretended not to notice how it turned into a real one, halfway through, and how Kit's fingers twitched forcefully with the effort of holding herself and her powers steady. "You're as mean as Durance, you know that?"</p><p>And like the priest's name had summoned him from the bowels of Hel, Kit heard Kana's booming laugh ring out somewhere in the distance. Today, it was easily the most beautiful sound in the world. If Kit laughed a bit in turn, if her head dipped down and her shoulders shook with the weight of relief and exhaustion threatening to tip her past her limits, Edér didn't remark upon it.</p><p>"You're gonna have to show me what else you can do, one of these days," was all he said, thoughtful, labored.</p><p>"Most of it isn't this nice," Kit said to her hands.</p><p>"Still," Edér said, faint but sincere.</p><p>Kit's throat caught again, keeping words trapped somewhere beyond reach. Instead of trying to dig them out, she radiated the impression of urgency out towards the whisper of the others approaching in her senses. They started to hurry, and Kit waited until they came upon the scene of carnage, Kana exclaiming loudly, to mutter another, "Thank you."</p><p>But Edér, she knew, heard it anyway.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Came Back Wrong</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p><a href="https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/CameBackWrong">Came Back Wrong</a> interpreted liberally, because I love to have fun. Specifically, running with the idea that post-Ashen Maw Watcher develops some side effects from soul-sharing with Eothas. References bits of <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/23033755">this fic</a>, but you don't have to read it.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>The Watcher was different, of course. Edér had known to expect it, because it wasn't like he -- or most of the folks he knew, for that matter -- had come back the same from the war. And none of them had come back from the dead, or had a good chunk of their soul spirited away by a god, so it came as no surprise that Kit kept catching him off-guard.</p><p>During those first few weeks in the Deadfire, she was exhausted and sick and struggled with an erratic hold on her powers, but Edér reminded himself that she'd been much the same when he'd first met her. It eased over time, her powers gradually returning to their usual level of scary, though Edér made sure to keep close in battle regardless. But the rest of it, the subtle shift in personality, wasn't usually worrying -- just different, like some of what made her up had been knocked over by a few centimeters.</p><p>Kit had loved crab, and now she bypassed it entirely in favor of other seafood dishes that she hadn't lost the appetite for. On more days than not, she went to bed at a reasonable time, and there was something more open about her, though it was hard to pin down exactly what it was. Less bottling things up, maybe, and more saying exactly what was on her mind without prompting or hesitation. Less recklessness and more caution, too, of a kind that Edér wasn't used to seeing. He might even say those were good things, had the reason not been what it was.</p><p>Sometimes it stung a little, though. Edér would make a passing reference to one of their little in-jokes, or to something that had happened the last time they'd gone on a grand adventure, and Kit would stare at him blankly. The look of guilt that crossed her face in its wake always hit Edér in the gut. Bad enough that his god had done this to her, without Edér making it worse, and he often found himself holding his tongue rather than risking it.</p><p>But that didn't have to be so bad, either. They could make new jokes and memories, and every time Kit talked to Eothas, more of her seemed to come back anyway. Some fire that had been missing, some spark reignited by the contact. It was reassuring, even if Edér wasn't keen on owing any peace of mind to Eothas right now.</p><p>And then they stormed Crookspur.</p><p>Kit had been cautious, in that newly acquired way of hers, about committing to when and how -- not because she wasn't itching to kill some slavers, but because they were thoroughly disadvantaged as the attackers, especially when she'd promised the Wahaki that she'd clear the place out. Even before this mess in the Deadfire, she'd had a way of going about things that neutralized any greater might and evened the playing field, a combination of deception and illusion and sneaking about as only a cipher could.</p><p>This time, though, they came by way of the front door.</p><p>They didn't need to worry about freeing the slaves themselves, because all over, Crookspur's ilk found themselves doing so, their minds and will dominated by the Watcher who strode through the main gate and shot the auctioneer dead. The fort was immediately thrown into a frenzy, and in another situation, it might have been bad news for the crew of <em>The Defiant</em>. But Edér remembered something that Kit had told him once, a fact that she'd used to their advantage often: a mind in disarray was more easily subjugated, and the collective mood of a mob or a battle wasn't so difficult to push in a desired direction. Easier to manipulate than someone thinking clearly, at least.</p><p>But Edér had never seen her use it like this, never seen her so lost in single-minded focus. It seemed like every third or fourth slaver turned pistol on comrade or protected the very slaves they'd stolen, and the path down to the dungeons was left wide open. Between the Wahaki warriors, the rest of the crew, and the unnerving and unnatural range that Kit's powers had suddenly gained, it was no trouble at all to make their way into the fort proper and into the spacious, luxurious office at its center, where the ogre bodyguard suddenly smashed his blade into the mercenaries in the room while Kit stalked across the office and advanced on Master Kua himself.</p><p>Edér had no doubt that the orlan was as good as dead, and that Kua was very much aware of it, as the former leader of Crookspur scrambled away, overcome with fright that couldn't be entirely natural. And yet Edér stepped forward after Kit anyway, and wasn't entirely sure why, only that he was dead sure that she still needed him. But a small blue hand grabbed him by the arm, and Edér hesitated, looking down.</p><p>"Easy, lad," Serafen said, frowning after the Watcher, and he unloaded a shot into the ogre bodyguard with a cold glance, ensuring that the ogre went down before Kit's influence could wear off. Edér didn't need to be a cipher to feel the barely restrained rage that had been emanating from Serafen since they'd made port. "Something's not right here."</p><p>"And I'll be damned," Xoti murmured somewhere at Edér's other side, which was all he needed to hear to know that something was wrong indeed. Xoti made no move after Kit either, and her voice was curious, almost awestruck. "Have y'all been seeing this?"</p><p>"Been seeing something, sure as shit," Serafen said. "Ain't entirely sure if I find meself liking it, though it be no less than these motherfucking rats deserve."</p><p>The rush of battle paled in comparison to the unease that had been growing and growing since they'd come through the main gate. Edér couldn't put name or definition to it, but something not being <em>right</em> was an understatement. Kit had done something with the luminous adra and that pendant of hers, sure, and her powers had certainly seemed to grow after the hit they'd suffered at Caed Nua, but this was... well, he didn't rightly know. He didn't know how Kit was still operating far past her usual capacity, how she wasn't the least bit tired or drained yet. He didn't know why she'd hardly said a word since they'd arrived.</p><p>But before he could ask Serafen or Xoti to explain, Kua was dead, collapsing into a shriveled heap beyond his desk as his soul detonated with a crack that they felt more than heard. Edér had spent enough time with Kit to recognize the effects of a power that his normal eyes couldn't quite see all the way, but he definitely saw something now, a steadily intensifying glow radiating from Kit's adra pendant. Like she was making use of the splintered fragments of Kua's soul, instead of letting them dissipate.</p><p>Edér would have expected some kind of protest from Xoti at that, but she only let loose a soft gasp, her eyes wide, and didn't look at all inclined to get close.</p><p>It was Serafen who took a few steps forward, letting go of Edér's arm, as Kit straightened and turn away from the body. "Alright there, Cap?" Serafen called out across the office, his voice unusually soft, and Kit's eyes snapped to find him, glistening with a sheen of light that wasn't light. "We done some right fine work here. But I be thinking it's about time you let go of all that focus afore it sends you tipping into Ondra's depths, if you catch my meaning."</p><p>It was clear that something else was going on under surface, something that Serafen was trying to do between their minds, but he had hardly stopped speaking when he flinched back with a cry, nearly slipping on some of the blood pooling out from the mercenaries.</p><p>Xoti grabbed him and hauled him back across the office, as Serafen muttered, "Right then. She ain't care for that."</p><p>"That's... that's Gaun," Xoti said, and she might as well have punched the wind out of Edér. Xoti murmured something else, and the faint light of a holy shield began to glimmer around them. "I mean, not <em>him</em>, but... I feel him. Here. In her."</p><p>Edér blinked, his head turning mechanically between Xoti and Kit, whose essence-tinged eyes were roving between the other bodies in the room, as her pendant continued to gleam with more and more light. His stomach twisted at the sight, at Kit's face devoid of its usual keen-eyed life and possessed with something else, something dispassionate and distant. He couldn't make sense of it, not when he couldn't see whatever it was that Serafen and Xoti could, but neither could he move, even though he stood nearly outside the circle of protection and Xoti urgently beckoned him closer.</p><p>What <em>else</em> had Eothas done to Kit? The worst thing was that Xoti sounded as nervous as she was reverential, and if <em>Xoti</em> was afraid of some trace of Eothas...</p><p>"Thought I was sensing something afoul," Serafen said, and he crouched within the protection of Xoti's spell, rubbing at his head. "Meaning no disrespect to you or your god, lass, but this ain't what I would call an ideal situation."</p><p>"You'll find no argument here," Xoti said. Her fingers tightened around her sickle, and Edér's stomach dropped down to the vicinity of the ocean floor, especially when Kit's eyes left the other bodies at last and fixed on the three across the room. On the protective magic and the readying of weapons. "I think I can call her back, but this ain't gonna be pretty."</p><p>Finally, Edér got his voice to work. "What?" he asked, and the word cracked. Kit stepped around the desk, her gaze locked on them, and Edér didn't like how scared he suddenly was. Of her. "Black bones, we're not gonna <em>hurt</em> her."</p><p>"Make no mistake, lad," Serafen said, and now he, too, was cloaked in essence that wasn't quite visible unless glimpsed under the correct angles. By now, Edér knew how to catch it in the corner of his eye. "Whatever the Captain is right now be having no second thoughts about hurting us."</p><p>Only half the office separated them from Kit, who approached with measured, unhurried steps, and it looked as if Serafen was right, that something in her was registering them as a threat and that she was going to deal with it accordingly. She was very good at dealing with threats in a permanent fashion, and Xoti and Serafen could clearly see something dangerous enough to put them on the defensive.</p><p>But Kit hadn't lashed out yet, even though distance meant nothing at all to her powers today. And Edér didn't think whipping out weapons and spells was <em>helping</em>.</p><p>Edér didn't think about any of it, really. Didn't let himself think about it. All he knew was that he thought he'd rather die than turn his sword on Kit. He'd almost lost her once, and now he was terrified that it was about to happen again. Because of Eothas, <em>again</em>, and Edér just didn't have enough of anything in him to stand against Kit and Eothas both, or whatever the Hel was advancing across the room now.</p><p>
  <em>If we do not meet again, Edér, please take care of the Watcher.</em>
</p><p>Edér stepped outside of the ring of Xoti's protection, and ignored Serafen cursing and Xoti admonishing him to come back. He lifted his sword just long enough to throw it down on the ground between him and Kit, and for one awful moment, he wondered if that was it for him. But Kit paused, a stillness so quick and abrupt that it had an air of unreality, and Edér immediately raised his hands in a placating gesture of surrender.</p><p>"Hey now," Edér said, and he made himself meet her gaze, even though his eyes hurt with it. "You know me." He sank to his knees as he spoke, mostly because being taller than her would be of no help either, and because his legs were fast losing the ability to keep him upright. "I don't... I don't know what's going on in that head of yours right now, but I know you. And I know you don't wanna hurt me or anyone else here."</p><p>Kit's attention narrowed to him, and Edér would be lying if he said it was anything other than unnerving. He kept himself still, even when Kit came to a stop in front of him and stared down at him indifferently. Her powers seized him, and it didn't hurt, exactly, but it wasn't comfortable either, when her thoughts touched his and he caught a glimpse of whatever Xoti and Serafen were seeing. He felt it more than saw it, something burning away in the Watcher, furious and gleaming and all tangled up in who she was, and it was then that he intimately recognized the <em>other</em> presence in her, a bittersweet smell of candle and incense coating the back of his mouth like he was a kid again.</p><p>Except it wasn't really <em>other</em>, was it? It was her, and it wasn't, and he couldn't understand it if he tried.</p><p>"Come on, Kit," Edér said desperately as he looked up at her, and he thought about those weeks of waiting for to her to <em>not be dead</em>, about lazy days at Caed Nua, about long nights on the road years ago when she'd refused to sleep and he'd refused to let her deal with it alone. Anything to coax her back. "Don't-- don't do this to me, alright? I can't do it again." He hadn't realized just how much he couldn't, until something divine had pulled her away once more, before his very eyes, and now all he had left was an inability to lift his sword and panic pounding away in his chest so loudly that she must've heard it. "You've gotta come back."</p><p>Kit sifted through his thoughts, sensations and perceptions grasped by some invading hand while her face remained detached, like she was looking at something far away and inconsequential. Edér held still and figured that he'd do just about anything to never have her look at him like that again, but he didn't allow himself to flinch.</p><p>He didn't know what did the trick in the end, but the intensity of the experience faltered, and like that, his head cleared. A jolt ran through Kit, her mind abruptly retreating from his like it had been burned and her hands jerking. The sheen faded from her eyes, leaving behind confusion and horror, and she stared down at him for one frozen moment, then all but collapsed forward.</p><p>Edér caught her, and she sagged against him with a muffled sob that did something funny to his heart. He stayed there on his knees as she wrapped her arms around him in a hug that was just shy of squeezing the air out of him, which was not like her at all, and that told him just how rattled she was. He himself could barely process the fact that it had worked, and for a moment all he did was let her cling to him and let his fear trickle away. He knew that she could feel it, pouring out of him and pounding against his ribs, and he wished that she couldn't.</p><p>Kit sucked in a breath and, still muffled against his shoulder, said, "What the <em>fuck</em>?"</p><p>"Understatement, Cap." Serafen came around into Edér's view and stared down at the scene like he wasn't quite sure whether to trust it.</p><p>The whisper of protective magic fizzled out, and Xoti came up on the other side. Her eyes were rather misty as she placed a tentative hand against Kit's shoulder. "You okay, Watcher?"</p><p>Kit took another deep breath, then pulled back. She remained crumpled on the floor in front of Edér, small now, instead of towering, and Edér remained where he was, leaning back on his heels, in case he needed to catch her again. "I'm alright," Kit said, and she didn't sound alright. But she gave Xoti something that might have approximated a smile, and then her head swiveled around to find Serafen, her eyes flying wide. "Gods. Shit. Did I hurt you?"</p><p>"Weren't nothing but a sting," Serafen said, visibly relaxing. "And pride stung most of all. Suppose I weren't the one you were wanting to talk to."</p><p>Kit's gaze snapped back to Edér, the color in her face draining away. Her mouth worked soundlessly, until she choked out, "I could've <em>killed you</em>," and he knew the accusatory tone was directed more at herself than at him.</p><p>Edér shook his head firmly. "You didn't," he said. "You stopped."</p><p>He knew what the sick dismay on her face was. "But I--"</p><p>"Hey," Edér said, "if I didn't want to run the risk of you digging around in my head, I would've stayed next to Serafen. Figured it would help if you poked around a bit." Truth be told, he hadn't put that much thought into it beforehand, but he did so now, looking back, and so she would only register it as truth. He meant every word.</p><p>"Though it be paining me to say that whatever laid hold of your mind was a damn sight stronger than yours truly," Serafen added, "and that farm boy here was illuminated with the brighter idea between us. Downright poetic, that was." He tipped an imaginary hat to Edér and offered an exaggerated wink.</p><p>"Besides, I wouldn't let it get that far," Xoti said, full of confidence, and she folded her legs beneath her as she looked Kit over. "Don't you worry." She extended her hands, then hesitated, blinking at Kit rather shyly. "May I?"</p><p>Kit let Xoti take her hands and clasp them between her own, and a soft light glowed where their skin met, as Xoti concentrated and muttered. Edér didn't think it was healing, especially when that nostalgic taste of incense settled on his tongue again, and a furrow appeared between Xoti's eyes as her chanting faded away. "Yep," she said, though the light didn't fade with it. "That's Gaun, alright."</p><p>"Great," Kit muttered, and Edér was seized with the irrational urge to pull her close again, as if to shield her from whatever it was.</p><p>Xoti didn't take offense to Kit's less-than-enthused reaction and only clucked her tongue sympathetically. "What do you remember?" she asked, her eyes returning to the light between them, as she focused on whatever she could sense within its depths. "I noticed something felt off before we got here, but I didn't think much of it until later. There's been something a little off about you since we met." Xoti blushed suddenly, her hands tightening around Kit's. "If you don't mind me saying."</p><p>Kit huffed out a hollow laugh. "That'll be Berath's thing. Or the half a soul thing. Who knows?" She sighed, deep and weary. "I was... angry. And I wanted this done. I knew I'd have to strike hard, and I made sure that my powers were... primed, before we went in. And when I reached for them... I couldn't find a limit. I kept reaching, and eventually it was all I could think about. I just saw... souls. I don't even know if I recognized you," she added, with a glance at Serafen.</p><p>"Ain't never touched my mind to anything like it before," Serafen agreed. He'd crouched down next to Xoti, his gaze troubled and intrigued both as he studied Kit. "And that be a bit of a god in you?"</p><p>"Feels like it," Xoti said, caught somewhere between awe and nerves. She let go of Kit's hands at last, and the glow fizzled out. Edér's uneasy sense of the divine remained, but he figured it was probably his troubled imagination more than anything.</p><p>"It is," Kit said flatly, like she knew more than she was saying. She dropped her head into her hands, rubbing at the space above her eyes like a headache was forming.</p><p>Something indignant and furious bubbled up in Edér. No matter how hard he tried to make peace with what his god was doing, the concept always seemed to dance elusively out of reach. "So, what?" he demanded. "Eothas just dumped that on you?"</p><p>Kit dropped her hands and lifted her head, and the look she gave him was pained, nearly pleading, halting his angry thoughts in their tracks. "That's not it," she said. "It only got so bad because... I liked it. It felt good. I didn't want to let it go." Her lips pressed tightly together as she looked away from him and down at the floor.</p><p>Edér wondered why she thought that was news to him. She'd already told him what she used to be like. It didn't matter, not when she worked so hard to be different. Not when he had put himself at her mercy and had his faith in her justified.</p><p>And then her next words threw him for real. "And I, ah... I cut out pieces of him, I guess you could say?" Kit said. "The bit of me he took, that is. And I think... those pieces became a part of me. I've... felt <em>different</em> since Ashen Maw." After a moment of silence, Kit's eyes returned to her audience and found shock staring back no matter where she looked. "What? It's not like I was going to just sit around while I was with him."</p><p>Xoti's mouth opened and closed and opened again. "No offense, Watcher, but he <em>let</em> you do that?"</p><p>An odd little smile settled on Kit's face. "I think he was impressed, actually."</p><p>Edér wasn't sure how he felt about that look on her face, let alone her words, but Serafen snorted and shook his head. "Don't know why I be expecting any less of you, Captain Watcher," he said, and he gave Kit an appraising look. "No limits, now... that's something that might be useful."</p><p>Kit's entire demeanor shifted in an instant, her smile shuttering behind something tense and unhappy. "No," she said at once. "It's not. You don't--" But she stopped herself abruptly and took a breath. Her fingers went to the pendant at her neck, which was still suffused with an unusually strong glow. "That's why I only have one of these. Theoretically, I could make a dozen of them and be stronger than ever, but... no. Limits are good. Especially when I barely know what this is yet."</p><p>Serafen studied her for a long moment. "That's why you be the Captain, then," he said, his voice oddly gentle.</p><p>But Kit only sighed, unhappiness still prominent and written into every rigid muscle as she hunched on the floor. "If it happens again..." Her voice trailed away, and she grimaced.</p><p>"We'll figure it out," Edér said. That, at least, he was certain about, because he was still reeling from... well, all of it. He figured if she could rip out pieces of a god, she could damn well puzzle out how to put them in a box. Not to mention how she'd recognized him even when caught in the depths of it. That had to count for something.</p><p>The look that Kit gave him was so frustrated that he could practically feel it coming off of her in waves. "I'm <em>not</em> putting you in danger like that again."</p><p>"Not what I meant," Edér said patiently. "Couldn't you... I don't know, you're always talking about reversing flow and stuff like that." He dipped his head in the direction of the pendant. "Couldn't you <em>make</em> whatever limits you need?"</p><p>Kit's mouth hung open slightly, and though her eyes were on him, her gaze grew unfocused, somewhere far away and lost in thought. "Huh," she said, like she'd just had a revelation that Edér wouldn't hear the end of for a few days. Not that he minded, when she went on and on.</p><p>Serafen chuckled again and clapped Edér's shoulder. "I do believe you've the only brain in the room today, lad."</p><p>"I'll help," Xoti said fiercely, her eyes large and full of a wondering reverence, and Edér wasn't sure how he felt about that either. "No one knows Gaun like me."</p><p>Kit smiled, then, her gaze shifting between them, and the tension in her began to melt away. She nodded, but even as strain trickled out of her, a great weariness seemed to settle in its place. She looked only a breath or two from keeling over, which seemed to Edér like a belated limit all on its own, and Serafen was quickest to move.</p><p>"What say we make our way back outside, priestess?" Serafen said, getting to his feet and giving Edér a meaningful glance as he spoke. "Lest the crew think us perished. Would be a shame for them to break out the grieving grog without us, and I dare say we'll find plenty who could use your healing hand."</p><p>"Alright," Xoti said, though her worried eyes lingered on Kit as she climbed to her feet in turn. "Sure you'll be okay, Watcher?"</p><p>Kit nodded and made no move to get up herself. "Go ahead. We'll catch up."</p><p>After Serafen and Xoti departed from the office, Kit surprised Edér yet again that day by slumping into him, leaning her head against his shoulder. Another little flare of worry gripped Edér, but upon examination, it seemed that Kit was as fine as she could be, given the circumstances. Just more open than usual, and Edér wasn't quite used to it yet. His legs were starting to go numb, but he didn't move.</p><p>"I'm sorry," Kit muttered. "I scared the Hel out of you. I could <em>feel</em> it."</p><p>"Yeah," Edér said, because he couldn't and wouldn't lie, "but you're dumber than I thought if you think that's gonna scare me away."</p><p>Kit let out a heavy breath. "I liked it," she said again, and he figured that she was trying to hide her face too. "How <em>I</em> felt."</p><p>"Yeah," Edér said again, like it was obvious. "Think I'd like feeling powerful too, if the gods kept yanking me around." Kit lifted her head and pulled away at that, and he wasn't sure if she was going to argue or keep on blaming herself, but he wasn't in the mood for either. "Look, you try harder than anyone I know. I don't even know how you do it, staying decent and keeping it all balanced like you do. Nothing wrong with bringing a little holy wrath down on some slavers, if that's how you've gotta let out all that stuff you've got bottled up."</p><p>Kit didn't look entirely convinced, and Edér knew that her experiences had been so very different from his. That she'd been taught to wield power remorselessly, and that it had left such a deep imprint within her that she still walked so very carefully now. That her soul's ugly past hadn't helped, either. But it still seemed simple, from where Edér was standing. All that mattered was that she tried.</p><p>"And when it turns on you?" Kit asked, her eyes dark. "On the others?"</p><p>"Didn't I say?" Edér countered, very pointedly. "We'll figure it out. No use beating yourself up over something that hasn't happened."</p><p>For a moment, Kit's mouth twitched like she was ready to keep arguing, but Edér thought that maybe it was out of habit, rather than any genuine desire to keep wallowing. And finally, Kit huffed and looked away, and the fight left her with it. "It's a good idea," she said, fingers curling absently around her pendant. "Maybe you should take up animancy."</p><p>"Eh," Edér said, "I'm gonna stick to hitting things with my sword, if it's all the same to you." He heaved himself to his feet, and his legs immediately protested, pulling winces out of him all the way up. "... Ondra's tits."</p><p>Kit wasn't quite able to swallow her snort.</p><p>"Yeah, go ahead," Edér said, cautiously stretching out his knees as he scooped up his sword and sheathed it, "laugh at the old man."</p><p>Kit rolled her eyes, not an smidgen of pity to be found. "We're the same age."</p><p>"And we're gonna look like a pair of old fools, hobbling out of here," Edér said, offering his hand, because he had a feeling that Kit wasn't going to be steady on her feet for a while yet. At least the tingling in his legs was already lessening, and when Kit took his hand, he was easily able to haul her up. She leaned into him gratefully, confirming his assumption, and he thought about how trust went both ways. How she put her worst fears in his hands like he put his life in hers, and the other way around too. How easy it could be to carry either wrong.</p><p>And how easy it often was, he thought, as they left the bodies and the fort behind and hobbled out into the sunlight, to carry it well.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Migraine</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Clearing out Caed Nua didn't make it any less creepy, and Edér was in agreement when the Steward suggested that they shelter in the Great Hall for the night, where she could keep an eye on them. A sleepless guardian was a welcome thing, though Edér took first watch anyway, out of habit. At least he'd have company, and maybe that would keep him from dwelling on the road to Defiance Bay, on the answers that may or may not lay ahead.</p><p>Kit excused herself to sleep in the library that lay adjacent to Great Hall, which wasn't unusual. She had a habit of going off by herself and had paid for a separate room in Gilded Vale, and Edér figured that she just liked her space. This time, he might have guessed that four men were a bit much for her, except that something was clearly off today.</p><p>She'd been brooding since Maerwald, and that wasn't unusual, either. Hel, Edér was doing plenty of that himself. It might have explained the little scowl between her eyes, one to rival Aloth's or Durance's, except that wasn't it, either. Edér was sure of it, though he wasn't sure why.</p><p>Kana's interest piqued at the mention of a library, but the way that Kit shook her head and uttered a short, "In the morning," was off, too, and she was pretty abrupt about bundling up her things and disappearing through the arch moments later. Kana was generously not put off by the brusque interaction, but as the others settled down for the night at the foot of the dais, Edér sat on the steps and stared at the arch and the shadows beyond.</p><p>Something was bothering Kit. Edér could have written it off as understandable distress in the face of only grim news from Maerwald, but... he didn't know if he wanted to follow Kit into the library and tread on her toes, either way.</p><p>"Your name is Edér, correct?" a quiet voice said behind him, and Edér tried very hard not to jump out of his skin.</p><p>"Sure is," he said, twisting around on the steps to look up at the throne and the carved likeness of the woman attached to it. He kept his voice pitched as low as hers, lest the sleeping figures below start complaining. "Didn't catch your name."</p><p>"'Steward' is just fine," the voice said, which was a little strange, but weren't they all? "Are you close with my lady?"</p><p>That was going to take some getting used to. "We met a few weeks ago," Edér said thoughtfully, after giving the question some consideration. "But yeah, I guess so." Something about Kit just... made his head feel clearer. Kit seemed to like him well enough, too. At least, she seemed more invested in helping him get answers than a stranger warranted. "Uh... why?"</p><p>"I am debating whether or not she will resent an intrusion of privacy," the Steward said, and Edér frowned. "I am still a stranger to her, but if I were to send in a friend..."</p><p>Kit had been out of sorts since they'd come up from the Endless Paths, and Edér knew that he hadn't been imagining it, even without whatever weird psychic bond that Kit already had with the Steward. "Is she okay?" he asked, his stomach doing a somersault.</p><p>The Steward didn't answer right away, which did nothing for Edér's nerves. "She is in a great deal of pain," the Steward ventured, and Edér was on his feet without a second thought. "I don't believe it's an injury," the Steward amended quickly. "But she was evasive when I inquired further."</p><p>"Yeah," Edér muttered, and irritation was easier to parse out than worry. "She does that." He waved a hand at the Steward in thanks and farewell both as he made his way down the steps. "I've got it. I'll tell her it was me who decided to poke my nose into her business."</p><p>"Thank you, Edér," the Steward said warmly, and Edér stepped around the sleeping figures on the floor and made his way to the library.</p><p>A few iron lanterns affixed to the walls had been lit with Kit's torch, and it gave him a view of the mess within: overturned chairs and ladders, half-rotted books and sagging wooden shelves, and the smell of mold and mildew and dust layering it all and tickling the back of his throat. Edér wandered past some shelving, following footprints in the dust and debris, and found that the narrow room gave way to a much wider area lined with shelves upon shelves, home to more of the same dimly lit disorder within.</p><p>There, most of Edér's irritation evaporated at the sight of Kit curled up on her bedroll in the shadow of one of the shelves, hands clutching her head like they were all that was holding it together.</p><p>The sudden, alarmed anger as Kit caught sight of him gave Edér pause, but not enough to stop him from crossing the room. Kit lifted herself up onto an elbow and gave him a dirty look, the effect of which was diminished by the fact that she was squinting like the lights in the room were far brighter. "Edér," she sighed, and she had a lot of nerve to sound so annoyed with him, "I'm fine. Go away." But there was no venom in it, only weariness, her voice strained and congested and small. It didn't sound right, coming from her.</p><p>"I will," Edér said, "when I'm sure you're not dying. You're not making a great case of it, so far." He came to a stop and leaned a shoulder against the nearest shelf, pointedly folding his arms and planting his feet.</p><p>"It's just..." Kit dragged herself up a little further, almost sitting straight, but for the way her shoulders hunched. She swallowed like something was trying to come up, her face pinched and miserable, and none of it was a convincing display of well-being. "It's just a migraine."</p><p>Edér waited, but no further explanation followed. "Am I missing something?" he demanded, prompting Kit to squint some more at him. "What are you hiding in here for? You think we don't need to know something like that?"</p><p>Kit's face darkened, and it was only after the fact that Edér realized he was treading on something a bit too hard, though he had no clue what it was. "It's none of your business," Kit said hotly, then winced, curling further into herself as she wrapped an arm around her stomach.</p><p>Edér supposed he was off-kilter today too, thinking no more clearly than Kit was, with his head full of hopes dashed and then pinned on some future location instead. He didn't know why Kit was so damn determined to slink away and lick wounds in solitude, but he figured there was no good reason for it, if her defensive bristling was anything to go by. So he softened his voice. "Sorry," he said. "But we're a team, alright? All of us."</p><p>"Even Durance?" Kit asked hoarsely, some of her scowl clearing under the irrepressible need to take the piss out of the priest.</p><p>"All of us except Durance," Edér amended and was rewarded with a tiny upturn of Kit's mouth. He smiled too, a flash of warmth before it fell away. "So what if something happens, huh? How am I supposed to have your back if I don't even know how you're feeling? And that's a rhetorical question," he added. "I shouldn't be making speeches while your head's splitting in two. Just something to think about." He straightened, arms falling to his sides as he stood there awkwardly and didn't know what to do with his hands. "... Can I do something?"</p><p>Kit shook her head, and then her hands came up to claw at her forehead with a bitten-off groan. "It just needs to pass," she said faintly.</p><p>Edér got the sense that his lingering was only making things more difficult for her. He swallowed back the urge to ask after medicine or treatment of some sort, because she would know more about that than he did. It went against his every instinct and made his hands twitch, but he nodded and said, "Alright. I'll go away now."</p><p>Kit didn't say anything, maybe because something was going to come up if she opened her mouth again, and Edér returned to the Great Hall without another word, even though it felt wrong like a physical itch under his skin. He didn't like feeling so useless, and he tried to pretend that he was doing something, by reassuring the Steward that Kit was just a little under the weather and that she had it handled.</p><p>Of course she had it handled. He didn't know much about her, except that she'd been on her own for a long time, and maybe that was the only way she knew how to handle things. But if he was asking for her trust, then he had to give some in return.</p><p>The next morning, Edér had the others fan out and scrape through the main keep one more time, in case they'd missed any useful resources. If Kit hadn't emerged by the time they were done with their sweep, Edér would go in to check on her again, and not a second before. And as he'd thought, Kit showed up by the end of it with her eyes clear and her usual composure in place, pack shouldered and weapons at her side like she was ready to hit the road once more.</p><p>"There's not much in there," she said to Kana as she joined them. "Most of it's rotted."</p><p>Kana already had a notebook in hand. "But <em>most</em> does not mean <em>all</em>," he said hopefully, his eyes glued to the arch.</p><p>Kit snorted and waved him on, and as Kana disappeared into the library, Edér drifted over to Kit's side.</p><p>"You okay?" he asked, keeping his voice low, but Durance was particularly grouchy and avoidant in the mornings, and Aloth was engaged in conversation with the Steward anyway.</p><p>"Yeah," Kit said briskly, and Edér figured it was the truth this time. There was no scowling, no hunching, no excessive brooding. "It... gets bad sometimes, and nothing really helps. But you're right. I just... I forget, that not everyone's going to... well." Kit came to a full stop, then forged on like there had been no pause at all. "I'll tell you when it's bad."</p><p>Edér didn't think she'd appreciate it, if he asked what she forgot. She appreciated space, and he could manage that, so all he did was nod. He didn't need the details, if she didn't want to share. He just needed to know what to account for, and maybe that was a conversation to have with everyone soon, because he was getting the feeling that he was the only one who'd ever put in actual work as part of a unit before.</p><p>Kana's voice drifted out from the library, eagerly calling for Kit to come and see something that she'd <em>obviously</em> missed. Kit grinned and turned to go, but not before flicking something in Edér's direction.</p><p>He caught it reflexively and held up a small golden ring. It prickled under his fingers with magic that was meant for protection, according to its engravings.</p><p>"Careful," Edér said. He slipped the ring on, and it adjusted to the size of his finger, because magic rings were good at accommodating the needs of the wearer. "You give me any more gifts, folks are gonna think you're playing favorites."</p><p>"Let them," Kit said, a smile just visible over her shoulder as she swept towards the library once more, and Edér chuckled and followed.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. Hidden Scar</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Edér didn't move like something was wrong. He moved like it had been quite a fight, and it had, but a distant flinch raked across Kit's senses: a shudder only just kept locked away beneath skin, accompanied by kneejerk distress, and Kit frowned. She stepped around the body of a skuldrak, looking Edér over, but she found no visible injuries with a closer examination.</p><p>"Are you okay?" she asked.</p><p>Edér gave her an easy smile. "Just a little sore from hauling Aloth up," he said. "Would have been nothing about ten years ago."</p><p>It wasn't a lie, exactly. But it wasn't everything, either. Kit had been very carefully dodging thoughts about just how wrong their stint on the elevator could have gone, how easily Aloth could have fallen to his death, and she needed to check on him too, now that they had a chance to breathe. Whatever it was, Edér didn't want to talk about it, so Kit only nodded, murmured a fervent, "Thanks," for ensuring that such troubled thoughts existed only in her imagination, and went to find Aloth.</p><p>But it didn't let up. A dull sense of pain radiated from Edér, even as they got the cannons up and running, even as they made the trek back to Stalwart. There, before they sought out the Abbey, they'd spend a day or two recovering from the long walk to the Iron Flail and the long fight to take the rest of the Battery back, and Kit shelled out enough coppers for three rooms in The Gréf's Rest, for the others to divide as they willed. But even with the hard couple of days they'd spent out in the wilds of the March, no one was quite ready to retire by the time they settled in the common room for the evening.</p><p>It was a visible flinch this time, as Edér reached across the table for one of Haeferic's complimentary drinks, and so Kit tried again.</p><p>"Hey," she said, nudging him with a shoulder. "What's wrong?"</p><p>Edér didn't finish reaching for the drink. He withdrew his hand slowly, a frown between his eyes. "Old injury," he said. "Thought it would have faded by now. I must've wrenched it pretty bad." He flashed her a sideways grin, one that didn't mask the thread of insincerity that wound through him. "I reckon ale will fix me right up."</p><p>He reached for the drink again, and the shudder didn't surface as he pulled it close. Kit felt it nonetheless, partnered with a sharp flash of misery.</p><p>Edér didn't actually touch the drink, and it wasn't long before he excused himself for the night, citing a few more aches than he was expecting. The drunken philosophical debate between Hiravias and Zahua raged quite spectacularly on, but Kit wasn't listening anymore. <em>Aches</em> -- that was putting it mildly. And it was rich of Edér to get on <em>her</em> case about honesty regarding her well-being, if he wasn't going to do the same.</p><p>The debate held the attention of half the inn, and Kit slipped away easily. She found Edér sitting on one of the beds in their rooms with his head in his hands. He looked up as she entered and had the decency to appear contrite as his bleary eyes landed on her.</p><p>"A few aches?" Kit asked dubiously.</p><p>Edér let loose a slow exhale. He held himself carefully, his shoulders stiff, and Kit knew that the knot from which pain maintained a steady thrum was located somewhere in his lower back. If she listened closely enough, she could feel it as if it were her own. "It's just... it hasn't carried on this long in a good while." Edér hands flexed where he'd lowered them, like he was looking for the feel of a weapon. "Brings back memories and all."</p><p>He wasn't unhappy that she'd followed him, so Kit came forward and took a seat on the bed beside him. "I guess healing doesn't help?"</p><p>"Nah," Edér said. "A priest took a look at it eventually, but she said something about scarring and essence. I dunno. Guess it's a common thing in war. Soldiers taking hits that won't heal all the way." He frowned down at the ground and hurried on. "Whiteleaf helps sometimes, but uh, I'm trying not to smoke while we're out and about. Gotta stay sharp on the road."</p><p>Pain didn't keep anyone sharp, and Kit dug fingernails into her palm, in the absence of something to hold. "Do you want me to--?" But she cut herself off, so abrupt that there was no explaining it away.</p><p>Edér glanced over at her, a pensive look on his face that held no confusion as to what she'd been about to say. He didn't speak right away, and Kit didn't find the words she wanted in that time. It was different, when things were quiet. When there was no heat of battle or imminent threat to strip away reservations and make justifications easy.</p><p>"You can tell me to piss off, if you want," Edér said, casual and cautious both, "but is there a reason you're so skittish about your powers? I mean, you've told me a little, but you act like something awful's gonna happen."</p><p>Kit's throat closed tight around any number of things she could say. She didn't want to dwell on it, because the more she thought about it, the harder it was to stop. But Edér didn't ask to deflect from his own woes. He genuinely wanted to know. He'd been wondering about it for a long time, Kit knew, a fact she couldn't help but hear in the words, but now... well, she supposed he knew that she was comfortable enough not to bristle at the question.</p><p>Her defenses withered. "I hurt a lot of people," she admitted, the words thick like there was illness at the back of her throat. "Even after I left the... the people who raised me. I knew it was wrong, but I just... kept doing it. To get money, food, things I wanted. To get away with things. It was just... so <em>hard</em> to stop." She was lucky that she had nothing with which to fidget. She might have broken it, the way her hands clenched around themselves. "And I still... think about it. A lot. How easy it would be to look into someone's head and know everything I want to know. How easy it is to... make people do things. I haven't even stopped, I just... make sure to justify it, nowadays."</p><p>Sometimes she wasn't even sure where she made distinctions and drew lines, between Iron Flail and Leaden Key, between people who threatened them immediate harm and people whose threat could be contained another way.</p><p>And she didn't know why it was easier to admit than she'd thought it would be, except that talking to Edér was always easy.</p><p>Edér listened carefully, and little shifted in the pensive look on his face. "Well," he said, slow and thoughtful as he balanced a hand, palm up, on his knee, and he emphasized the next few words, "if you want, I wouldn't mind a bit of that pain blocking you can do." He gave her a quick smile and tapped at his forehead with his other hand. "And you can take a look, if you're curious. Bet you can hear a bit of it anyway."</p><p>Kit stared at him, her heart quickening into beat better found on a battlefield.</p><p>"You don't have to," Edér said. "But you're not gonna hurt me, if you do."</p><p>Kit sat there, mired in nerves that she knew weren't entirely rational, but Edér was right. She could hear the echoes of memories that had been dredged up for him, could feel where their edges entangled with the pulsating of physical pain, and if she pursued it, she knew how and where to cut and pull at those knots, to undo some of the snarl of a soul malady that it had become.</p><p>"It wouldn't be a block, exactly," Kit said, hesitant, but Edér only nodded and didn't ask any further, like he trusted whatever she had in mind.</p><p>And if Kit grabbed his hand a little too hard and fast, Edér didn't flinch.</p><p>Kit sank into the warmth of living essence, and she knew it was only her perception of him that colored Edér in the vibrant gold of sunlight. She tracked lines of essence and brain matter, her mind superimposing a habitual grid that cut through the metaphysical noise and gave her a trail to follow, a locality to calculate. She pulled herself deeper and determinedly pulled herself away from flashes of other thoughts, those she hadn't been invited to glimpse.</p><p>She considered it, as always, but it was an involuntary trail followed and then veered away from.</p><p>The memories were immediate and visceral when she reached them. The physical scarring kept a tight hold on the scarring of essence, and as Kit waded through with her own essence held sharp and careful, she felt the rush of panic. Felt the fall, heard the din of screams and death, felt a cold shadow on her back and a blade maneuver around armor that had seen better days. The part of her that wasn't caught up in experiencing the memories as her own felt a rush of disgust. A cowardly attack from behind against a downed enemy, and she took a moment to breathe through the agony that came with it, through the raw fear of sudden vulnerability.</p><p>That was where the knot was tightest -- not just at the locality of pain, but in the marrow of what it meant. There, physical and mental and spiritual were so fused that call-and-response kept them achingly fresh in an endless feedback loop, but it wasn't difficult for Kit to slice and tug, to unravel the knot and leave it as uniform as the essence around it.</p><p>As much as it could be, anyway. She couldn't completely overwrite scarring like that without changing something fundamental, and that was far too invasive, not to mention beyond her ken.</p><p>When Kit surfaced, her hand was locked around Edér's in a death grip. Her shoulders were tense like she'd held them stiff for hours, though it had only been a few minutes.</p><p>Edér's eyes were wide, but he didn't look disturbed. Only surprised, and a little thoughtful, like always.</p><p>"That should help," Kit said, clearing her throat. "With the, ah... memories. And maybe the pain too, over time. It won't be so... loud." She was having a hard time finding the right words, but she made an effort regardless, because Edér had let her dig around in his head, and she needed him to know that she hadn't betrayed that trust. "That priest was right. If something... bad enough happens to the body or the mind, sometimes the problem will... amplify itself, by imprinting on your essence too. So I... I loosened it for you, where it was linked too closely."</p><p>She wasn't sure if that made sense, but Edér only nodded again. "Thanks," he said, wondering, and the corners of his eyes crinkled. "No harm done, right?"</p><p>Slowly, Kit extricated her hand from his and squeezed her hands between her knees, where she clenched them tightly together. "Yeah," she said, and she didn't know how to voice the tangle of her own thoughts. How to get it past the lump in her throat, over what he'd offered just to make her feel better. "I'm... I'm sorry. About what I saw, I mean. That must've been terrifying." She exhaled hard through her nose. "All of it must have been."</p><p>Edér shrugged, like he was testing the injury in the wake of Kit's attempt to ease it. He still winced, but none of the raw misery accompanied it this time. "It was," he said frankly. "Didn't help that I never knew what I was fighting for or against, or if it was worth it or not. But... most of it's just a distant memory now. And if I can stop feeling like I'm about to be stabbed in the back every time it hurts," he offered her a crooked grin, "I might just get Kana to help me write you a song. Give it to the bard, let the whole town hear it."</p><p>"Try it," Kit said dryly, "and I'll get him to help me toss a fish barrel over your head." But she couldn't help looking over him again, even though she didn't know what she was looking for. "Are you... sure you're okay?"</p><p>"Kit," Edér said, with obvious patience, "if I figured there was something bad about whatever it was you did, I'd tell you. That's what you asked me to do." He cocked his head, looking thoughtful again. "Felt kinda nice, actually. Like a buzz."</p><p>Surprise drew a snort out of Kit. "That's... a first?"</p><p>"Probably not the word I'm looking for," Edér admitted. "But you get what I mean."</p><p>Kit did. She got why he'd offered, and why she'd been seized with the impulse to offer, too, even though it made her skin crawl every time she turned powers on friend instead of foe. Pain still lingered, a whisper against her senses, but the absence of reflex misery in its wake felt... good. Good to have engineered that, good to have done something with her powers that was entirely voluntary.</p><p>"Did you want to rest?" Kit asked.</p><p>"Yeah," Edér said. "Not feeling up to much else."</p><p>"Take the bed," Kit said and fixed him with such a direct glare that Edér didn't dare to argue. She didn't feel like returning to the common room, so she went to find her pack and retrieve a book that Kana had recommended. Returning with it, she settled down on one of the extra cots and smiled when she saw that Edér was already dozing.</p><p>And as she leaned back against the wall and got lost in the history of Rauatai's struggle against its storms, Kit felt an odd sort of comfortable ease, that night.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Fun fact: I wrote a TMA Jon/Martin fic with this same premise -- <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22402960">freaky psychic powers being repurposed for intimate thought-sharing, in order to make said psychic feel slightly less monstrous, while stepping oh-so-delicately around using said powers to cause harm</a> -- because I eat that shit up.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. Insecurity</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When they settled down for the night, Edér found the Watcher by the river.</p><p>Kit sat hunched among the rocks and reeds with the standard piece clutched in her lap. Her frowning face came into view as Edér stepped gingerly across the stones, and he thought he saw something in her eyes, some whisper of eerie violet light, gleaming in the moonlight that pierced the woods around Clîaban Rilag. The glare that Kit directed down at the piece was of a kind that Edér would have usually steered clear of, until he was sure that Kit's bad mood had ebbed and she was amenable to company. But she'd been sitting there for a while now, and it was about time he put a stop to it.</p><p>"Hey," Edér said. He took a seat next to her, facing the gurgling river and the shadow of the ruin in the distance. Their backs were to the river reeds, to the camp that the party had taken over for the night, but Pallegina had taken first watch and had a sharp eye out. "Give it a rest."</p><p>Kit didn't move. Her glare remained fixed upon the standard piece. "You know I'm chronically incapable of doing that, right?"</p><p>The laugh came quiet but easy. Edér was almost surprised, after the fact, that he didn't have to force it, but he shouldn't have been. It was just that way, with her. "Yeah," Edér said. "Gives me grief, it does. But you fit right in with us Dyrwoodans."</p><p>The words felt funny, as they left his mouth. Like they meant something else, too, something he wasn't entirely sure of yet. But Kit was warm and focused beside him, still trying her stubborn hardest to pull answers out of something that only she could see. Answers for his sake. He didn't think he'd ever met anyone like her.</p><p>"Look," Edér continued, after clearing his throat. "I know I came across ungrateful back there. I didn't mean it. You went out of your way." He'd never met anyone so prone to going out of her way for anyone and everyone, that was for sure.</p><p>"Not far enough," Kit muttered, but her fingers uncurled from around the piece, and she lifted it from her lap and set it aside on the riverbank.</p><p>Edér frowned, as Kit lifted her eyes to meet his, her face set in disgruntled lines. "It was plenty far," Edér said. "Farther than I expected."</p><p>But she wasn't good at accepting that, he knew. At accepting limitations. Knowing that, oddly enough, made it a little easier for Edér to peel another layer of disappointment back and cast it aside. He'd set his expectations too high, and that was on him, not her, no matter how strange and powerful she was.</p><p>"Yeah, but..." Kit fell silent, with a deep furrow between her eyes. "I've been trying to understand for a while now, why we can do that. Why ciphers can track memories like that. But it's like it just... fizzles out." She gestured aimlessly, as if demonstrating the things that lay beyond her reach. Edér thought that it was remarkable that she'd uncovered as much as she had, so of course she didn't see it that way. Didn't see it as enough. "And I don't know the how or why behind any of it. It doesn't make any sense."</p><p>None of it really made sense to Edér, whenever she talked about it. She'd go on some tangent, and he'd get lost about a fourth of the way in. It was like she lived a little beyond him, sometimes, as far away as whatever it was that she had trouble understanding.</p><p>"I thought being a Watcher would change things," Kit added. "Give me some, I don't know... deeper insight?" She sighed and looked unseeingly out at the river, at the ruins, like her gaze was fixed on something far off, something even farther out of Edér's reach. "But it's useless, and I'm back where I started." Kit's lips pressed thin, then, and she glanced back at Edér. "Sorry, I don't mean to make this about me, I just... I thought I'd be able to help."</p><p>And she was still trying. Her eyes slid back to the standard piece every few seconds, like she was thinking about picking it back up. Edér knew that he'd probably have to reach across and physically take the damn thing away, because Kit didn't know how to let things go once she sunk her teeth into them.</p><p>It should have been annoying. Instead, it lit something warm and fond in Edér's chest, exasperation nestled in between, and oh, Edér thought. Shit.</p><p>The murmuring of the river was the only sound. Even the party was quiet behind them, mostly asleep, and Kit studied Edér in growing concern when silence stretched on. He wondered if she could sense it, if it was loud enough to get past the boundaries she set between her thoughts and the thoughts of others. Her eyes were brown and eternally curious, and her face was regularly fixed in a pensive frown as her thoughts ran a mile a minute, and it occurred to Edér, then, that he wouldn't mind inviting her home, if he had one.</p><p>"Are you okay?" Kit asked.</p><p>Shit, Edér thought. Definitely not. His last chance to lay the past to proper rest had led to a dead end that felt final, and he didn't really know what Kit meant when she said that it had <em>fizzled out</em>, and he didn't know why the thought had now embedded itself in his mind all of a sudden, for the first time in what felt like an age, that she'd <em>want</em> to come home with him. He didn't even have one, not really. She was the one with the castle and the powers and the intellect, with too many important problems on her plate. And yet she'd carved out room enough to take on his wallowing too.</p><p>But she was looking worried, now, and Edér tried to remember the thread of the conversation. "For a second, I thought I <em>would</em> get some answers," he said slowly, as he pieced it back together. "And now I keep thinking... why should <em>I </em>get them? There's a world of Eothasians out there, don't know if their god's been blown up. But that's what I thought, at the time, 'cos of you." He paused and swallowed. "You've got a way of making folks think that anything can happen."</p><p>Kit scowled and kicked at a stray pebble. "Sorry to disappoint."</p><p>"That's... sorry, that's not what I meant." There Edér went, putting his foot in his mouth again when he wanted to get a point across. Best just to get to that point with haste, and he wasn't even sure what it was, except that he was suddenly more nervous than the situation warranted, and talking took the edge off, and he wanted to make sure Kit knew what she'd done for him. "I meant... you did help. More than..." His voice cracked around the words, just a bit, and he had to catch himself and try again. "More than you know. I, uh-- I was pretty stuck, back in Gilded Vale. Kept telling myself that I'd get out, before it got too bad. But... I don't think I would've. I think I would've just... let it happen, if you hadn't come along, strange as they get, talking about Watchers and bîaŵacs. It was like I got unstuck, when I met you. And I'm lucky for it. Even if I didn't get the answers I want... I'm still here, aren't I?"</p><p>Kit had gone still, as Edér spoke. He couldn't quite figure out what was going on in her head, because she was carefully avoiding looking at him. "I'm glad you are," Kit said, quiet, but she still wouldn't look at him. It was only when she scuffed a boot against the stones again that Edér realized that the edges of his trousers had gotten rather damp. He pulled his legs in, staring down at the dark water stains as he hiked the edges up. "I'm... sorry," Kit said, her voice thick. "You miss him."</p><p>Edér wondered if she could feel that too, spilling out of him like he'd only ever stopped up a leaky dam with a bit of cloth. "Every day," he said, only just able to get it out of his throat. And that was just the thing: he was tired and grieving all over again, and trying to reckon with whatever closure this was meant to be, and it made him think weird things. Made him impulsive, maybe. "But... least I know more, now."</p><p>Kit didn't speak again for a few long moments, though something was clearly brewing, and Edér saw the way that her eyes darted back to the standard piece. He really was going to have to physically remove it from her possession, and once again, it made that impossible fondness squeeze tight around his lungs. Too tight for air to get out, for any words to follow, which was probably for the better. He couldn't very well voice whatever foolish stray thought crossed his mind.</p><p>"Um..." Kit said, and the odd smallness of her voice didn't really suit her. "What will you do?"</p><p>"Come again?" Edér asked.</p><p>"Now that you've got, well..." Kit grimaced down at the ground, as if there was something interesting among the river stones, and her voice was rather strained, "not answers, but... what are you planning on doing?"</p><p>It was Edér's turn to frown. "Dunno," he said. He'd put less thought into it than he should have. Too busy enjoying the freshly novel experience of actually liking the day-to-day again, maybe, to think about what he wanted to do when this was all over. "Guess I've gotta figure that out."</p><p>"Well, whatever you decide," Kit said, and her tone grew artificially calm and measured, something that Edér had begun thinking of as her court voice, and now she was using it on him, "I can help you get set up." She fell silent, then added, "As long as it's not Gilded Vale. I don't like the thought of you going back there."</p><p>"Don't like it much myself," Edér agreed, but he cast a dubious sideways glance her way, as something uncomfortably heavy settled hard in his stomach. Because it sure sounded like Kit meant now, not later, right when he'd been having stupid thoughts about needing to figure out what home was so that he could invite her there. "I... was planning on seeing this Watcher thing through. With you. Unless... you'd rather I didn't--"</p><p>"No!" Kit said, quick in a panicky sort of way. "I just thought... you don't owe me anything." She was fervent, then, like she was trying to impress something on him but didn't know how. "Even if you feel like you do. I-- it's whatever you want to do," she finished, and the uncertainty was downright incongruent, an ill-fit on her.</p><p>Edér stared at her and thought that he must have missed something, somewhere along the way. He'd rarely seen her this hesitant before. Did she think that he <em>wanted</em> to leave? That he'd hit the road as soon as he got what he wanted? He couldn't recall anything he'd said to give her that impression, but then again, he wasn't the best at this. "I'd like to stay," Edér said cautiously, after a few moments of debating with himself. "If you don't mind."</p><p>It seemed like the right thing to say, because some of the tension slipped out of Kit's shoulders, like an unspooling knot. She nodded, and her face softened under the weight of clear relief. It made Edér feel better by a margin, though he still felt as if something had sailed right past him while he was at unawares. Not an uncommon feeling, lately.</p><p>"I'd like that," Kit said, which made something unwind within Edér, too. She didn't <em>want</em> him to hit the road, though apparently she'd expected him to. She hadn't been spending any time imagining a future with him in it, then. And why would she? She had more than enough to worry about already, and she lived her life in places where he couldn't quite keep up.</p><p>As expected, the standard piece returned to Kit's lap, like her hands were compelled to seek it out, and Edér pointed a scowl in her direction, pushing those thoughts out of his head. Wouldn't help him to dwell on that, and it wouldn't be fair to her. He was just happy to be here, at her side, enjoying life instead of slogging through it. "I think that's enough," he said, holding out a waiting hand.</p><p>"I just want to try one more thing," Kit said, pulling the piece away from him.</p><p>Edér didn't lower his hand, even though it wasn't going to work. "How's about you hand it over and get some sleep instead?"</p><p>The lines of Kit's face hardened in that stubborn way of hers. Edér had realized some time ago that he wasn't likely to win very many stand-offs with her. He'd also realized that he was fine with it, and he resigned himself to it, as Kit's hands curled a little tighter around the piece. "In a bit," Kit said, light and friendly in a dangerous manner.</p><p>Edér almost laughed again, just because it was so very her, and it felt good in that sore kind of way, the exercise of an unused muscle, to have become so familiar with someone's mannerisms again. So he sighed and gave up, because he could clock a lost cause when he saw one. "Alright," he said, shaking his head and clambering to his feet. "But if I get up for watch, and you're still out here, I'm gonna put river water in your shoes."</p><p>"Doesn't telling me about it ruin the surprise?" Kit asked dryly, still curled around the piece like a dragon guarding her hoard.</p><p>"Dunno," Edér said, shaking out the ends of his trousers. "Maybe I'm trying to throw you off the scent." It was gratifying, to see the way that his words smoothed out the eternal furrow between Kit's eyes, even if only for a moment. It was good to see the corners of her mouth and her eyes crinkle in a smile, more and more as of late, as Edér stepped away from the riverbank and headed for the camp, tossing his next words over his shoulder as an ominous threat. "I mean, who knows what you'll find in your bedroll?"</p><p>And when he was woken up several hours later, in the darkness of early morning broken by the dim and flickering light of the fire, he couldn't be sure that Kit was actually asleep. But she'd given up at last and was curled up in her bedroll with no standard piece in sight, and that was good enough for Edér, at least until she decided to try again.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Had a hard time deciding which flavor of insecurity to go with, so I thought, why not all of them? Featuring mister "someone like her couldn't be interested in someone like me" and "oh fuck what if she doesn't actually need me?" and miss "automatically expects people to leave" and "cannot accept failure and WILL be trying again later."</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0008"><h2>8. Mind Control</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Kit didn't use her hands as much, when she worked her magic. It was the kind of thing that must have come on too gradually to notice, until they saw each other every month instead of every day, or else in an interim that Edér had missed. Used to be that some gesture would precede some strange twist of an enemy's mind, and when Edér asked, Kit described it as directing some unseen flow. Now, though, she hardly seemed to need it, like all they'd been through had left her that much stronger.</p><p>She was still as the dead today, hands hardly twitching, but no change followed. Edér didn't feel any different. And the look on Kit's face was more apt to make him nervous than anything about those powers of hers.</p><p>"You know," Edér said, his voice light, "I was kidding about the trade thing."</p><p>It wasn't the first time they'd come to the training grounds to spar. It had become a regular activity, whenever he stopped by Caed Nua, and that was how Kit had ended up lugging around a shield. She'd taken well to weapon-and-shield style, and when Edér had jokingly suggested that she owed him a few lessons too, she'd gotten a thoughtful look in her eyes.</p><p>She looked less thoughtful now, less caught up in possibility, and more fit to have a nervous breakdown.</p><p>"We don't have to do this," Edér added, a little more quiet.</p><p>Kit's face twitched with obvious frustration. "It would be good to get some practice in," she said. The training grounds were empty by design this afternoon, but her eyes flicked away for a moment, scanning the grassy area as if wary of threats. Caed Nua's walls were silent, and the wooden equipment stalls offered no movement. "I mean, what if--?" Kit's mouth snapped shut, and Edér could only imagine what was going through her head in that moment. Nothing pleasant, probably.</p><p>Edér shrugged. "Could always get some in with someone else," he said. "What about, uh--" He frowned. He couldn't bring the name to his tongue, like it slid right out of his thoughts, and he gave up after a few moments of struggling to hold on to it. "Uh... our midwife friend?"</p><p>It wasn't exactly the wrong thing to say, he figured after the fact, but Kit didn't look happy. One of her hands worked nervously at the pendant around her neck. "I know, but..." she began, then appeared to forcibly swallow the words. "<em>I</em> wanted to--"</p><p>She was hardly finishing sentences now, which was no good, but Edér couldn't very well trample over the emphasis there. It came to rest warm in his chest. "I just don't want you to work yourself up," he said carefully. "I know it's a touchy subject and all. But you know I trust you, right?" He didn't bring up that she'd used her powers on all of them plenty of times before and gotten them out of a fair number of scrapes with it. He already knew what her counterargument would be. Funny, how you got to know someone like that. "There's no one I trust more to walk me through it."</p><p>And Edér had to admit, maybe he would feel a shade nervous with their midwife friend, or Kit's Glanfathan friends or vithrack friends. He didn't know them like he did Kit.</p><p>He expected a different response, because Kit's face shuttered into something unreadable, but she took a breath and nodded. "We can give it a try," she said, to Edér's surprise, and her shoulders settled and her stance shifted, as if at the ready. "It's, ah... it's really about being able to recognize it and then knowing how to react. And to recognize it, you've got to have some exposure to it."</p><p>Edér counted them off on his fingers. "Well, there was that one spore, the vithrack controlled by that one spore, another spore, couple of other ciphers we've met... lotta spores, huh." He gave Kit a critical once-over. "Sure you don't have some fungi in your family tree?"</p><p>It had the intended effect, because Kit's careful mask cracked as a snort slipped out, and she smiled down at the ground. "I'm not hungry for corpses," she said, "yet."</p><p>"Let me know if you get any cravings," Edér said, very seriously.</p><p>Kit's smile lingered only a moment before it disappeared under the weight of a frown. She took another breath, and still it took her a moment to find her words, which Edér spent wondering if he'd lost his touch since they'd parted ways or if she was just that deeply bothered. "And... what did it feel like, those times?" Kit asked.</p><p>It wasn't something that Edér liked to dwell on, and he figured it was probably for the best, that they were starting with this particular type of resistance. Kit had said something about any other kind of resistance being easier to build, if you could throw off domination. "Like my body got a mind of its own," he said. "And didn't give a damn what I wanted."</p><p>Kit arched an eyebrow at him, and a fraction of her nerves seemed to melt away. "That's good," she said, and she had to pause and brace herself before she continued. "A lot of people will lose control of that, even. What they want."</p><p>Edér made no comment on how unpleasant that sounded. "Guess I'm lucky."</p><p>"You're good at combat," Kit pointed out. "That takes discipline, and that helps." She nodded, in a satisfied sort of way. "I think that'll help you a lot, actually."</p><p>It joined the warmth already resting in Edér's chest. "You're gonna make me blush," he said, shaking his head and letting his eyes flick elsewhere, because there was something like admiration in the look she gave him, and it was akin to staring directly at the sun. And then, because he had a feeling Kit wouldn't be able to bring herself to go any further without help, he cracked his knuckles for show and said, "Ready?"</p><p>It didn't look like Kit was, but she had that stubborn set to her face. She moved, rather aimless and sudden, like an automatic inclination to pace or circle, before she reined herself in and offered a jerky nod, stopping her fingers from reaching for her pendant. She stood perfectly still, looking at Edér while her gaze was set somewhere far away, before she gave herself a little shake.</p><p>Even though they stood in the center of Caed Nua's training grounds, they carried no weapons. This wasn't the type of training that required such a thing. And like usual these days, Kit hardly needed to move her hands anymore. Instead, something changed in her face and stance, an abrupt shift in concentration, and the whisper of an ache rocked through Edér's head. His thoughts crowded in, narrowing, corralled by shadows and fog. A disconnect cleaved through him, sharp as a young blade, peeling thoughts away from form and leaving him floating, unanchored, drifting away from himself.</p><p>It wasn't an unfamiliar experience. He even had a few moments of clarity, before the ache passed and the dark fog thickened, in which he tried to commit the sensation to memory as much as he could, because Kit had described the process like walking the same path through snow every day: a difficult slog at first, but easier and easier, deeper and deeper each time it was walked. It wasn't so different from training with a sword, in the end, and Edér's spent his last moment of clarity thinking that Kit would probably laugh if he compared it to lifting weights with your brain.</p><p>And then the fog vanished, retreating as suddenly as it had come, and Edér fell drunkenly back into his body. It was unexpected enough that he staggered a step, halfway off-kilter, and it took him a moment to blink and reorient himself.</p><p>When his vision settled, he saw that Kit's eyes were wide and watery and bright in the afternoon sun, that she had flinched away, and Edér's stomach fell out from beneath him.</p><p>"Hey," he said, uncertain as he stepped forward, but Kit remained rooted to the ground. She wouldn't look at him, but she didn't seem to mind when he placed a hand on her shoulder, and after a moment, Edér ventured to speak. "That wasn't so bad. Didn't hurt or anything."</p><p>Kit scowled down at the ground, but she didn't pull away. "Sorry," she said. "Sorry, I just--"</p><p>"Now, don't start apologizing," Edér said, before she could start in earnest. "You did hear me, right? When I said we don't have to do this."</p><p>Kit let loose an explosive sigh and lifted her eyes to meet his. Her anger wasn't directed at him, but Edér nevertheless felt it like a force, as if it bent the air between them, and he dropped his hand. "I know," Kit snapped. "But I'm <em>tired</em> of feeling... <em>controlled</em> by this!"</p><p>Edér didn't know what to say to that. It was a good thing, probably, but Kit was Kit, and she was rarely happy when results happened in slow, faltering steps. Edér could just about figure why this particular subject was so sore for her, more so than any incident on the battlefield. He knew that her training hadn't been anywhere near as gentle and hesitant as she was with him, and he wanted to tell her to take it easy. But whether she would listen or not was debatable.</p><p>"Then we'll try again later," Edér said simply. "Maybe with that blinding thing you can do." He hesitated, then added, "But you know, I was able to think through it, for a second. Think you're right about the discipline thing."</p><p>Some of the rigid tension drained out of Kit, slow and halting, and the look she gave him was mostly inscrutable, before her eyes dropped back down to the ground. One of her boots scuffed at the grass. "Good," she murmured.</p><p>No one had been gentle and hesitant with her, Edér thought, and it sat funny in his chest, too, that she was so careful with him. He'd always thought of himself as pretty hardy. Most people assumed as much, but apparently, Kit didn't find that acceptable. She worried too much, about everything, and Edér wondered if the same things would take the edge off still.</p><p>"Gotta be some training dummies that your guards haven't shredded yet," Edér said, jerking a thumb in the direction of the equipment stalls. "Would be a shame to leave them out."</p><p>For a moment, Kit didn't react, frown still aimed far away, and Edér feared the worst, that he'd lost the thread of something in the same time that she'd grown past the need to use her hands to direct her powers and he hadn't really noticed. But then Kit's face cleared, as she shifted and regarded him appraisingly. "How much are we betting?"</p><p>Edér made a show of considering it and tried not to show his relief. "Thirty pands," he decided. It sure felt good, that it wasn't such a great amount anymore. "To whoever takes its head off first." He nodded, in an important sort of way. "Thought I'd do you a favor, lighten the load a bit. That coin purse of yours must be heavy nowadays."</p><p>"It's about to be thirty pands heavier," Kit said, and her smile reached her eyes, and Edér thought that maybe he hadn't lost his touch after all.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0009"><h2>9. Outnumbered In A Fight</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p class="western">They were nearly back to The Goose and Fox when Kit felt it.</p><p class="western">The map of essence around her was a constant background hum, made up of ever-shifting lines of thought and intent etched across the resonance of countless minds. And made all the worse, now, by a Watcher's ear for the whispering dead and their lingering echoes. As Kit's skill had grown over the years, as her attunement to all that surrounded her had reached soaring heights, her ability to tune out had taken a significant dip. She had to take care not to let it overwhelm her, not to listen in on what wasn't meant to be shared, and sometimes that was more pain in the ass than it was worth.</p><p class="western">Sometimes, though, it had its advantages.</p><p class="western">Listening for ill intent was second nature, something she hadn't had to think about for a long time, and Kit didn't hesitate when something malicious rolled through the sea of essence around her. Something that sought her out, and when distant eyes landed on her, intent condensed into a singular, murderous goal.</p><p class="western">Kit backpedaled across the cobblestone at once, her hand latching on to Edér's arm. He didn't question it as she pushed him back into the shadows where two buildings met, until he was up against a wall and she was in front of him. The alcove wasn't quite an alleyway and ended in another wall too high to scale -- no escape that way. The walls on either side provided shadows and cover, but if they got cornered here, it would all too quickly become the jaws of a death trap.</p><p class="western">"How many?" Edér asked, his breath tickling the back of Kit's head. He moved, with rustling and a scrape of metal against stone, and his shield came into view, strapped on the arm that circled her.</p><p class="western">"Uh," Kit said, casting her mind out into the morass of Copperlane's denizens, "a lot." Food and money and sex and family, happiness and anger and disgust and sorrow -- she waded through it, pushing aside irrelevant threads and focusing on those that centered on her. The sense of pursuit was coming from more than one direction. But the assassins had a good fourth of Copperlane to cross yet. There was time. "Seven."</p><p class="western">Edér let out a huff. It might have been impressed. "You sure do make a lot of friends."</p><p class="western">"It's my charm," Kit said. "We need to get away from these civilians." Things were liable to get ugly, and it'd be an easier fight if they didn't have to worry about crossfire.</p><p class="western">"Dunno if we can," Edér said grimly, and Kit didn't question it. Edér kept an eye on their surroundings on principle, and he'd be the one to know if there were any bolt-holes within survivable distance.</p><p class="western">"Okay," Kit said, "then we need to get them out of here."</p><p class="western">Inducing enough panic to clear the street and courtyard beyond would be more than a little difficult, if there was nothing off of which to work. But if there was a catalyst, something tangible to make enough people nervous -- like, say, a loud noise -- and if Kit pushed on that fear, a small panic would lead to flight, and the more people fled, the more panic would spread.</p><p>So Kit dug deep, in a way that she typically refrained from doing, and urgency and the sense of Edér at her back cauterized hesitation and guilt as she stepped into minds and burrowed through thoughts to find something of use. "Igrun's got a shipment of pistols coming in," Kit said, after a moment. The delivery man's thoughts hovered close, and from that, she knew the make: pistols with percussion caps and explosive primers tucked away in them. Easy enough to set off a reaction there, if she could reach the delivery man's soul. It would only require finesse, to keep from hurting him. "Wagon parked on the other side of the street. Give me your hand."</p><p>Edér didn't question it. He still had the shield hovering over her, but his free hand enveloped the hand she offered, callused and tight. His soul radiated gold warmth and steadiness, calm in the face of danger, and Kit pulled on that, siphoning off just enough to build an amplified wave. At the same time, she called to the adra pendant at her neck, and its stored essence began to roil, as she wove Edér's essence together with her reserves.</p><p>Ciphers worked in close quarters against sapient foes, usually, but it would be enough to propagate a wave across the street, between their souls and that of the delivery man, to let it bounce harmlessly off of him and onto an inanimate target.</p><p>Kit leaned out past the wall against which she and Edér were pressed, peeking at the street and spotting the wagon with her eyes too. She spread her left hand out, letting the essence coalesce at her palm, then mimed a quick underhand toss.</p><p>The wave leapt forward, charting the paths that Kit had spent her life learning to utilize, and she held onto a gleaming thread of essence attached to it, snapping her fingers and sending a pulse shivering down the thread. The wave struck the delivery man, causing him to jump, and Kit curled her fingers inward before it could do more than sting. The pulse traveled as her fingers did, bouncing off of the outer shell of the man's soul and riding the ripples of the wave to strike the wagon instead, expanding with force and speed as it did so.</p><p>Kit felt more than heard the wood shudder and creak. With its living essence long gone, with only the faintest whisper of dead memory, the wood wasn't enough kindling for ignition to set the wagon on fire, wasn't enough metaphysical surface for reverb to crack it apart. But force or speed, sudden impact or heat or both, was all that was needed where primers were concerned, according to the depths of the delivery man's thoughts. The pulse rocked through the percussion caps, and several loud bangs went off in quick succession -- not quite gunshots without rounds to fire, but close enough.</p><p>As Kit ducked back into the alcove, the reaction in the sea of minds around them was instantaneous. Unease spread like fire to pitch, and Kit immediately pushed on it. A little fear didn't need the same degree of essence to propagate, and it took less effort to lean on minds now wary and alert. Kit sought out the small bright fields of souls burning away nearby, and it was only a nudge, a spark to stoke the fires of agitation, and guilt remained buried under survival.</p><p><em>Go home,</em> Kit thought. <em>Get to safety.</em> She imagined that her pounding heartbeat sped up and spread and spilled over into each person in range. She thought of nighttime shadows between trees, and things lurking within dark caverns, and the anguished cries of a Cean Gŵla scraping razor-sharp at the boundaries of hearing. She thought of whispers on the edge of perception, and a bîaŵac on her heels. <em>Get out of here,</em> she thought. <em>Before they get you.</em></p><p>Footsteps started to pound on cobblestone, and kith nature took over for her, flight compounding panic compounding flight.</p><p>"They close?" Edér asked, barely audible over the shouting, and Kit knew what he was thinking -- that they could disappear into the panic, with enough time.</p><p>Kit nodded. "Too close." The ill intent was closing in, using the fleeing crowds to do so. But at least the streets would be clear. "Ready?"</p><p>"Hey, can we do that electrical thing?" Edér asked, and they shifted like usual, Edér taking point. He stood in front of Kit now, shield at the ready. "I like that one. Makes me feel nice and mighty."</p><p>Kit smiled and placed a hand on his shoulder, attuning herself to the sense of his soul once more. The adra pendant churned with energy as she pulled out gleaming threads of essence and readied them, weaving them into the outermost shell of the essence that made up Edér’s soul.</p><p>They were still badly outnumbered, and so the battlefield had to be leveled. But that, more than anything, was Kit's domain, and she didn't need to see the assassins to know that they were flooding into the street. "Sure," she said. "Go get 'em."</p><p class="western">Edér left the shadows of the alcove with large shield locked in place, at enough of a crouch to protect him, and enemy fire rattled the metal in a screeching crescendo. Kit tuned out her worry, and tuned out the rabbit thrum of her heart, and tuned into the field of essence around her. The pendant burned, and the edges of her focus spread, the field of her own soul expanding and deepening with each pulse of heart and essence.</p><p class="western">The calculations were instinct and instantaneous, and Kit waited until four of the assassins were in range and a little too close to Edér for comfort.</p><p class="western">She jerked a hand up, and the shell of Edér's soul cracked open, and a shock wave blasted outwards. The assassins staggered under the lightning impact, and the threads of essence that Kit had woven into the action attached themselves to two of the assailants. With both hands, Kit snapped her fingers and sent another smoldering pulse shivering down the threads.</p><p class="western">She emerged from the alcove as she did so, and the pulses sparked against souls like flint to steel and set the assassins ablaze. Kit didn't stop to listen to their screams. She'd already crossed half the distance across the cobblestones to Edér by the time she raised another hand, this time to flare her fingers, and her intent, her iron will charted through the space, carried on an overwhelming burst of essence.</p><p class="western">The essence, carrying instruction, burrowed into the closest assassin, who launched himself at his fellow, and Edér wasted no time in hurling the shield at the next nearest assassin, who toppled over, unconscious on impact. Another had a crossbow leveled at Edér in the same moment, but the assassin was forced to jerk away when Kit rushed him. No time to gather focus again, when she'd expended so much, when she moved with a wobble in her step, but powers weren't her only tool, and the assassin narrowly parried the strike of her sword with his crossbow.</p><p class="western">He went for a dagger, and Kit's reaction time lagged, but the dagger went wide when Edér appeared out of nowhere, cutting into the assassin's neck. The assassin staggered away, already bleeding out, and Edér had to take a moment to recover from the strike, and something moved behind him. Kit lunged forward on alarmed instinct, dropping her sword as her arms wrapped around Edér in something like an embrace, pulling enough essence from him to hurl a haphazard and draining burst of energy behind him, towards the last assassin left uninjured, looming at Edér's back.</p><p class="western">The assassin jerked, calm giving way to frantic as their grip on reality cracked, and Edér pulled Kit in, shoulders and back bending like he meant to shield her. A crossbow bolt whistled by, far too close, and Kit knew it was a shot gone awry from the bleeding assassin, heard it in the last flaring pulses of a fading soul nearby, intent murderous even in the throes of death.</p><p class="western">Edér's protective presence vanished from around Kit, and something cracked, quick and gurgling, as Kit placed a hand against her turning stomach and breathed through vertigo. But it was habitual instinct to note details around her, even those that she could not see. The assassin who had lost hold of reality was next, Edér's sword making short work of them too. One thoroughly unconscious, and four dead, then; the puppeted assassin and the one they'd turned on had killed each other. One lay near-unconscious and groaning, having caught the brunt of lightning and ignition both, and the other staggered up to their feet through numerous nasty burns, still trying to reach Kit.</p><p class="western">Edér stalked forward, at the same time that Kit straightened. "I can do it," she said, but Edér didn't listen. He had no trouble parrying the wounded assassin's desperate lunge, and the assassin lay dead in another second.</p><p class="western">Kit let out a slow breath, and the slant of her thoughts tilted far too much, as she stooped down to pick up her sword and sheath it. Something buzzed in her ear, as if sound and a sense of essence began to return gradually, from beyond the confines of the street. Or maybe it was the dead whispering. Five dead, two more or less unconscious. The two might not make it, even so. And--</p><p class="western">"Not even a scratch," Edér said with a low whistle, staring down at his arms as if searching for one anyway. He turned back to Kit, reaching to his belt to pull out something to clean his sword with, and his eyes flicked to the unconscious assassins. "Do we, uh... do we leave 'em?"</p><p class="western">Bad idea, Kit thought hazily. Not a good means of covering your tracks, especially when someone was out to kill you. But so many people had tried to kill her lately.</p><p class="western">"I can do it," Kit said again, because it was safer to leave no loose ends, and it wasn't only herself that she had to look out for, now.</p><p class="western">And again, Edér proved temporarily deaf. "On second thought," he said, gingerly replacing the grimy rag with his sword hastily wiped down. He sheathed it and stepped forward, a steadying hand enveloping Kit's shoulder. "You're not looking too good there. Best get out of here before the guards show up."</p><p class="western">Guards were close, Kit knew. Distant shouts, distant burning shells of souls, approaching rapidly from the northwest. How had it taken them so long to arrive? Or perhaps the better question was: how quickly had the battle been over? It would be a long and drawn out process, if they had to hang back and explain themselves, and Kit was just too tired for it. Too tired to argue, even. There was no soul burning close enough, civilian or otherwise, to have gotten a good look at them. Yet.</p><p class="western">Kit nodded and grabbed a glove off of one of the nearest bodies, for later examination of soul traces and potential leads, as Edér retrieved his shield. Kit let Edér lead the way, but he didn't head straight back to The Goose and Fox. At least, not inside. They circled around the north end of the row of residential houses, slipped around the marketplace and past Admeth's Den, and stopped underneath a tree that grew in the shadow of the inn. It gave them a view of the amphitheater and the marketplace both, where curious heads were turned, straining to see the source of the commotion on the other side of the residential row. A dog barked in the distance, caught up in the excitement.</p><p class="western">"Take a breather, before we go inside," Edér said, by way of explanation. From where he stood under the shadow of the tree, his eyes kept shifting back towards the marketplace, back the way they'd come.</p><p class="western">Kit wasn't exactly opposed to the idea, but as she leaned against the stone wall of the inn, she gave Edér a frown regardless. "I'm fine."</p><p class="western">"Uh-huh." Edér sounded about as convincing as Kit did. He took his eyes away from their surroundings and gave her a once-over, folding his arms. He opened his mouth and then closed it, as if the words got caught between his teeth. The surety of a few moments ago was fading.</p><p class="western">"I didn't, um," Kit said, because Edér looked fine at first glance, but she didn't want to look too closely at the glimmering aura of his soul, now that no more urgency pounded furiously in her ears, "I didn't pull too much from you, did I?" That last casting had certainly taken it out of her, at least. Funneling that much essence in that quick of succession was dangerous to the threads that bound one's soul together and to the form that housed it, no matter how good you were at it.</p><p class="western">"Don't think so," Edér said, and he flexed an arm, as if to show her how intact he was. "Feels good to me."</p><p class="western">He dropped the arm and studied Kit, and Kit twitched against the stone. The wall was too hard, then, too scratchy and uncomfortable against her back, even through the leather. The murmuring of voices, the excited yipping of the dog, the whispers of souls, and the flashes in the corner of her eyes that may have been the wisps of dead, present or past or both or nothing at all... it was too much, and Kit nearly had to close her eyes against it.</p><p class="western">"Look," Edér continued, making another attempt to convey whatever was going through his mind, that Kit kept her cipher's eyes carefully averted from. "You're probably the scariest person I know." Kit frowned again, and Edér winced. "Uh... I mean that in the best way. Compliment-like. And I've got no words for the things you can do. That was a Hel of a thing, back there. Which means... you're not much the kind of person I can look after in the way I know best." Edér had gone a little red, and it wasn't the lingering rush of battle. "And that's good. Don't have to worry about you too much in a fight, 'cept when you're being reckless. But..." Edér took a breath, as if it gave him a moment to gather the point back up, "that doesn't mean you have to do every hard thing yourself. Alright?"</p><p class="western">Kit was too punch-drunk off of focus now fled and used up, and it took her a long moment to work out what Edér was trying to say. The words lodged into her ears like the murmuring of lost souls and ancient memories did, and she almost shook her head, as if to dislodge them. As if to tell Edér to mind his business. But she couldn't bring herself to.</p><p class="western">It was no good, leaving loose ends. But she had, simply because Edér had asked. It was no good, letting someone sidestep into her affairs like that, opening up an angle for someone to take advantage of. But--</p><p class="western">"Uh," Edér said, a tad nervously, hands fiddling with his pockets. "I'd appreciate it if you just told me upfront, whatever it is I said wrong. So I don't do it again."</p><p class="western">Kit blinked and realized that time had slipped from her again. How long had she been staring at him? Enough that Edér looked like he was seriously considering making a swift exit. "No, I--" Kit said, and then she realized that she had no idea what was supposed to follow. Gods, she was tired. Even with such a sustained use of her powers, this exhaustion ran much deeper than that. This exhaustion was becoming permanent, as long as whisper and memory hovered at the edges of her awareness.</p><p class="western">She wanted the answers behind them, so badly that she could taste the promise of them like blood in her teeth, but sometimes it was difficult just to think, these days. So maybe it was alright, if Edér wanted to look out for her as best he could, in or out of his own element.</p><p class="western">"You're good," Kit said. "I'm just... not used to you." She'd meant to say it differently, and it was her turn to wince, though Edér mercifully appeared more perplexed than anything. "I mean... your whole thing. Looking after m-- us."</p><p class="western">Edér stopped fiddling with his pockets. "Well," he said, and despite her best efforts to tune it out, Kit heard the edge of melancholy there. Heard something else too, underneath it. He didn't quite look out for most like he did her. "It's not like you look after yourself. So. 'Bout time you get used to it."</p><p class="western">Kit smiled faintly and looked anywhere but Edér. "Thanks," she managed, her eyes flicking past him, towards the marketplace. No commotion of guards had spilled out around the residential row yet. They were in the clear, probably. Kit straightened, stepping away from the wall and into the shadow of the tree. "How about we end this awkward conversation and get a drink?"</p><p class="western">"It's like you read my mind," Edér said, a bit fervently, moving as if to fall into step beside her.</p><p class="western">Kit went still, freezing in the wake of instinctual cold. "I didn't," she said, automatic, and as soon as it was out of her mouth, she locked her sigh behind her teeth.</p><p class="western">Edér only missed a small beat, as he found himself bereft of a presence walking at his side. "Oh, I know," he said, turning to face Kit. He jerked a thumb out towards the rest of Copperlane. "Otherwise you would've heard me thinking about that dog over in the theater. Sounds like he's in need of some mighty scratches, soon as I get you situated in The Goose."</p><p class="western">A breathy laugh left Kit, and with it left her desire to argue the point, that no one needed to see her situated anywhere. "Let's not keep him waiting, then."</p><p class="western">But Edér didn't go to see the dog. He called down the others who hadn't left for the day and explained the situation, as Kit nursed the lightest drink that the inn had. She was only vaguely aware of debate over this development, over who could have sent the assassins, if it was even safe to venture out alone or in pairs.</p><p class="western">Kit's head still buzzed with thick, weary tension, made all the worse by the proximity of so many minds and souls in a relatively contained space. It made her skin itch with a wordless need to compensate somehow, to make up for the dulled knife of thought until it sharpened back up. Her ability to think was all that she had, at the end of the day, and she couldn't afford to let it become compromised, when plenty of unknown threats lurked around every corner. And yet everything wanted to see her mind compromised, lately.</p><p class="western">But she had the others, seated at the table around her, and she had Edér, who didn't get up and head out for the amphitheater, who kept giving Kit concerned glances when he thought she wasn't looking, his worry bright in her cipher's eyes. And so maybe it was alright, that Kit lagged and ached and couldn't quite get her thoughts together as fast as she wanted to. Maybe it was alright, to be a little more defenseless than she was comfortable with.</p><p class="western">After all, they didn't even have a scratch on them.</p>
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